


no space among the clouds

by chasingredballoons



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, F/F, Minor Wilson Kirsch/Danny Lawrence, laura is a TA and carmilla is her very inappropriate student
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-02 06:20:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4049449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingredballoons/pseuds/chasingredballoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Laura's defence, she had no idea Carmilla was her student before she slept with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Laura's a senior, and a TA rather than a professor cause age differences personally aren't my thing.  
> Carmilla's a sophomore, and her and the Dean are not related here.  
> title from lover to lover by florence + the machine & [you can follow me on tumblr here](http://baumanelises.tumblr.com)

Being a TA isn’t the _worst_ job in the world.

Okay, yes, so Laura might’ve preferred being a barista, or an employee at Silas’ on-campus bookstore, but she could do a lot worse than being a TA for Professor Klaus’ English class. Even with its meager pay it’s better than nothing.

And sure, there’s the odd disrespectful student that flat out ignores Laura when she’s handing out papers or addressing the class (the cons of looking perpetually sixteen), or there’s the odd asshole student who thinks with a bit of puppy dog eyes she’ll up his grade from a C- to an A+ (talk about barking up the wrong lesbian; plus that wouldn’t even work if said puppy dog eyes were coming from a female. Laura has morals) because she’s apparently “less scary and threatening than Professor Klaus,” and it pretty much cuts Laura’s social life in half because her workload essentially doubles.

Then again, it’s not like Laura had a packed social calendar in the first place, evidenced by how out of place she feels at the packed bar Danny has dragged her to on a Saturday night, two days before the fall semester officially starts.

“Kirsch just texted, he’s on his way, says he’ll be here soon,” Danny shouts over the loud music, appearing back at the table Laura has commandeered armed with a tray full of drinks. Oh joy, just what Laura needs; to feel like an awkward third wheel to her roommate and her not quite boyfriend.

Laura graciously accepts the first shot of whatever Danny offers her, which smells, and thankfully tastes, like straight sugar, before going back to sipping at her regular-sized drink, something an alarmingly bright shade of orange and that tastes like fruit and tequila. Danny chatters at top speed about something in her English syllabus she’s excited about starting, sliding a few more of the sugary tasting shots towards Laura, until Kirsch shows up. His cheerful greeting of _hey hotties_ promptly changes to _hey Danny, hey Laura_ and he cowers slightly under the dual glares thrown at him.

Danny promptly starts distributing more alcohol, shoving a shot of…something under Laura’s nose, and she grimaces as she catches a whiff of what smells like bleach, plucking the shot glass gingerly from her hand.

“So, we are gathered here today to congratulate Laura,” Kirsch announces, raising his shot of bright pink liquid in a toast. “To your successful employment!”

“Yes, congratulations Hollis,” Danny continues. “May you be the best English TA Silas has ever known, may you not incur the wrath of Professor Klaus, and may you have no illicit affairs with students.”

They clink glasses, Kirsch howls with laughter at the scandalised look Laura is sure is on her face, and Laura downs the shot of what not only smells like bleach, but also tastes like it.

“That is disgusting,” she coughs, waving her hand in Danny’s face to signal a polite hell no when she proffers another shot at her. “I’m getting another drink. One that isn’t going to burn a hole in my throat.”

Danny waves her off, immediately turning to Kirsch with a sickening smile on her face. Laura rolls her eyes — they’re fooling precisely no one — and shoves her way through the crowd towards the bar. She orders the most sugary sounding thing on the menu, and while the bartender is busy making it, someone slides into the small gap in between Laura and the sombrero-wearing frat boy to her right.

“Hey cutie.” A low voice washes over Laura, and once she glances around and realises it must be aimed at her, she turns to be met with a cocky smirk and a pair of bedroom eyes that send a shiver straight down her spine.

“Uh, hi?” Laura squeaks, hoping her voice doesn’t actually sound as annoyingly high pitched to the other girl, who is perhaps the hottest person Laura has ever seen in her entire life, as it does to her.

The bartender chooses that moment to reappear, sliding Laura’s drink across the bar and announcing _seven euros please_ in a bored voice. Before Laura can rifle around in her pocket for some cash, the mysterious attractive stranger is handing a ten-euro note to the bartender and telling him to keep the change.

Hot Girl picks up the drink — an alarming shade of cyan this time, and Laura idly wonders if this bar has any normal coloured drinks — and hands it to Laura with a wink, before sliding an arm brazenly around Laura’s waist and escorting her away from the bar. Okay then, clearly this girl works fast.

She leads Laura away from the throng of frat boys congregating around the bar to a little alcove opposite the pool table, and Laura takes the opportunity to surreptitiously check out at her new companion. Leather jacket, black jeans so tight they look painted on, dark hair that Laura can picture herself tangling her fingers in tumbling in waves down her shoulders, and a smug looking smirk that alerts Laura to the fact her leering isn’t as subtle as she’d hoped.

Hot Girl turns to face her when they stop walking, but her hand doesn’t leave Laura’s body, drifting round from the small of her back to rest on her hip. Laura glances down at it, taking a large sip of her drink to try and ease how flustered she feels. It doesn’t really work.

“Little presumptuous, don’t you think? Dragging me over here?” Laura babbles like an idiot, since apparently being around a girl with a jawline probably sculpted by Michelangelo himself reduces her brain function to that of a coma patient. “What if I was planning on going straight back to my friends after I got my drink?”

“I don’t think your friends are going to be looking for you anytime soon, cupcake,” Hot Girl says, raising an eyebrow and nodding her head towards Laura’s previous table. Laura turns around and catches sight of Danny and Kirsch, attached at the mouth and oblivious to everyone around them. Typical. “And well, I wouldn’t say it was completely presumptuous when it’s pretty clear that you’re…interested.”

Laura turns back around at the low purr of the stranger’s voice. She seems a lot closer than before Laura witnessed Danny and Kirsch failing miserably at not being a couple, and now she’s close enough that Laura can see the exact shade of brown her eyes are. And how dark her pupils are. She gulps.

Laura might be a little…slow on the uptake sometimes, but even she isn’t oblivious enough to not realise she’s being blatantly hit on. “What makes you so sure I’m interested? I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m Carmilla. And it’s just a guess. I could be wrong,” she says with a smirk, her thumb slipping under the hem of Laura’s shirt and brushing against her hip. “But I’m usually pretty good at telling when a girl is interested in me.”

So, Carmilla seems like kind of an arrogant douche. However, she’s also incredibly hot, and a total stranger. Perfect one night stand material, Laura muses.

“I’m Laura,” she says, and after two seconds of internal debating — Danny and Kirsch are always telling her to let loose a little after all — she decides to throw caution to the wind. “And well, clearly the interest is reciprocated.”

It’s far from the smoothest of lines, but it appears to work, if Carmilla inching closer to her is any indication.

“Oh definitely,” Carmilla murmurs, her eyes drifting down to Laura’s lips where they’re wrapped around the straw, a predatory grin on her face.

Carmilla’s thumb ceases brushing against her hip, and instead her entire hand slips under Laura’s shirt, nails dragging lightly against her skin as her hand slides around to Laura’s back to pull her closer, close enough that the backs of Laura’s hands brush against her jacket where they’re still clinging onto the drink. Close enough that Laura can smell her perfume, making her head spin more than any of the alcohol she’s already consumed. Close enough for Laura to reach out to the nearest table to place her half-finished drink down, before mustering up the courage to grab the lapels of Carmilla’s jacket and tug her forward into a kiss.

Ten minutes later, Laura’s back is against the wall, her hands tangled in Carmilla’s hair, her tongue in her mouth and Carmilla’s hips pressing against her, grinding achingly slowly.

“You wanna get out of here?” Carmilla mumbles into her mouth, vocalising what Laura has wanted to say since Carmilla popped up beside her at the bar, but not had quite enough guts to say out loud.

Laura really isn’t the type for one night stands, but she’s slightly inebriated, one of the hottest girls she’s ever seen is one ‘accidental’ brush away from full-on groping at her ass, and she’s clearly being propositioned, so what else is she supposed to do? Say no? Laura is not that kind of girl.

She groans, “Definitely,” while Carmilla kisses down her neck in a manner far too obscene for public. Carmilla chuckles, laving her tongue over Laura’s hammering pulse. “Your place or mine?”

“Yours,” Carmilla replies, dragging her mouth back to Laura’s and kissing her deeply. “I don’t think my roommate will appreciate being a witness to all the things I want to do to you.”

_Good God._

Laura starts to worm her way out from between Carmilla and the wall, but gets stopped by Carmilla’s hands slipping down from her waist, shamelessly grabbing her ass, and pulling her back for another filthy kiss.

Somehow, Laura is still conscious and standing when Carmilla pulls back, licking her lips with a grin. “Okay, now we can leave.” She gestures towards the exit. “After you, sweetheart.”

/

Laura’s apartment that she shares with Danny is only a ten minute walk from the bar, but it takes them at least double that to finally reach it, what with Carmilla’s wandering hands that lead to regular pauses to make out against a wall or an appropriately clean looking lamppost. Carmilla suitably distracts Laura from finding the correct key by letting her hands drift up the front of Laura’s shirt while she kisses her neck, and once they’ve stumbled through the door Laura has enough presence of mind to text Danny and politely request she stays with Kirsch tonight —  _I have an 'overnight guest' so if you're not staying at Kirsch's I suggest you wear earplugs :)_  — before she drops her keys and phone onto the table beside the front door and lets Carmilla pin her against the wall.

Carmilla wasn’t exactly shy about touching her and kissing her in the bar, but now that they’re alone Carmilla seems to have zero reservations about kissing Laura heatedly. Her tongue licks into Laura’s mouth as Laura pushes at the leather of her jacket, and Carmilla lets go of her hips long enough to shuck her jacket off. Laura’s jacket follows almost instantly, hitting the floor with a quiet thump, and then Carmilla’s fingers are on the buttons of Laura’s shirt, undoing them quickly.

An embarrassingly loud moan echoes down the hallway when Carmilla ducks her head to drag long hot kisses onto Laura’s chest, undoing the last button and leaving Laura to wriggle out of the shirt and let it join the pile of clothing on the floor.

“God you’re so fucking hot,” Carmilla whimpers against her chest, trailing her lips up and up towards Laura’s ear, tugging gently on the lobe with her teeth.

Laura moans, manages to gasp out a desperate sounding, “You’re not too bad yourself,” and leans her head back against the wall, tangling her hands in Carmilla’s hair. Carmilla continues her assault on Laura’s neck and chest, kissing every inch of exposed skin and sucking bruises across her body. Her hands drop from Laura’s back to squeeze her ass, sliding her hands down further to the back of Laura’s thighs, urging her to wrap one leg around her waist.

Laura acquiesces, and Carmilla does the same with her other leg before picking her up easily, which, _okay wow_. She thrusts her hips forward, grinding hard against Laura while her teeth graze over her pulse point, and if Laura wasn’t turned on enough already, she certainly is now, and wants nothing more than to get them both very naked very soon.

“Where’s your bedroom?” Good thing Carmilla appears to be on the same wavelength.

“Second door on the right,” Laura groans as Carmilla starts kissing down her neck, sucking harshly at the base of it.

Managing not to trip or drop Laura as she stumbles down the hallway, Carmilla carries her into her bedroom, kicks the door closed after her, before making a beeline for the bed and depositing Laura on it, following to crawl on top of her immediately. She leans up on her knees to yank her shirt over her head, and Laura feels her mouth drop open as she stares at Carmilla’s torso.

“Try not to let your tongue fall completely out of your mouth cupcake,” Carmilla purrs, prowling back over Laura on all fours and leaning down to brush their lips together teasingly. “You’re going to need it later.”

Laura’s moan is swallowed by Carmilla’s mouth when she kisses her deeply, teeth nibbling at her bottom lip before her tongue strokes into her mouth. Carmilla doesn’t seem to have a lot of patience — not that Laura’s complaining — and her hands immediately slide under Laura’s body to unclasp her bra, tugging the straps off her shoulders and throwing it across the room.

Laura’s hands fly to the back of Carmilla’s head when she breaks the kiss in favour of dragging her lips down Laura’s throat, and across her chest. Carmilla promptly wraps her lips around one nipple, her hand coming up to her other breast and her fingers brushing across the nipple, and if she’s bothered by the way Laura digs her nails into her scalp, she doesn’t show it.

Laura squirms beneath Carmilla’s weight on top of her, whimpering and moaning quietly while Carmilla spends what feels like hours sucking and tugging at her nipples. A thigh makes its way between her legs, pressing against her and Laura’s too far-gone and far too wet to care about seeming desperate when she rocks up against Carmilla’s leg.

Carmilla’s teeth graze across the nipple caught between her lips and Laura groans out a ragged _ugh Carmilla please_ , which Carmilla thankfully listens to, letting go of Laura’s nipple with a wet pop, before starting to make her way further down her body.

Carmilla sucks a few marks against Laura’s hipbones as her fingers go to the waistband of her jeans, unbuttoning and unzipping them before dragging them down Laura’s legs as far as she can, leaving Laura to kick them off. Her soaked underwear follows quickly, and before she knows it Carmilla is pushing her thighs apart and sliding a finger into her.

One finger quickly turns into two, pushing in and pulling out of Laura roughly as Carmilla starts kissing her way back up Laura’s body. It feels incredible, and Laura tosses her head back against the pillow to moan embarrassingly loudly, her hips jerking up against Carmilla’s hand.

Carmilla stops at her chest, swirling her tongue around her nipples again and tugging on them lightly with her teeth. Laura gasps out a string of curse words when Carmilla circles her thumb against her clit, one hand clawing at the bed sheets, the other tugging on Carmilla’s hair.

Lips slide against her neck as Carmilla sucks what is probably going to be a giant hickey against the skin of her throat, and she briefly considers telling Carmilla not to leave a mark, but then teeth are scraping against her skin and Laura forgets every word in the English language that isn’t a swear word or Carmilla’s name.

“You feel good, cutie,” Carmilla purrs into her ear, nibbling at the skin just below. “I wanted to fuck you the second I saw you. The entire time we were talking, all I could think about was doing this—“ She pushes a third finger in, curls them roughly and Laura’s eyes roll back in pleasure. “—while you were spread out naked underneath me.”

Laura’s gasping and whimpering too much for Carmilla to really kiss her, and before she knows it Carmilla is slipping back down her body, and then there’s a warm tongue sliding across her clit right as the fingers inside her curl and brush right against the spot that makes her see stars.

“Fuck, Carmilla, I’m—“ she babbles, the heat pooling in her lower abdomen getting hotter and hotter until Carmilla’s tongue slides against her clit just right, and she goes flying over the edge with a long moan of ecstasy.

Carmilla’s fingers continue sliding in and out gently, bringing her down from her high, until Laura collapses breathlessly against the bed.

Laura watches through half-lidded eyes as Carmilla sucks her fingers into her mouth to clean them off, before fixing her with a grin so predatory that it might actually be terrifying if it didn’t make Laura want to fuck her through the mattress.

Laura reaches up to grab the back of Carmilla’s head, intending to kiss the smug arrogance right off of Carmilla’s pretty face. She groans against Carmilla’s lips at the taste of herself on the other girl’s mouth, bites at her bottom lip and sucks on her tongue, kissing her deeply until Carmilla is shifting to straddle her waist and grinding down hard against Laura’s stomach.

She gets the message of _I want you to fuck me please hurry up_ pretty quickly — although she gets the feeling Carmilla isn’t the type to say please — and pushes at Carmilla’s shoulder until they’re rolling over and Laura’s settled in between Carmilla’s legs.

Lifting herself up to hover over Carmilla, Laura pushes her hips forward to grind against Carmilla slowly, just so she can watch the way her eyes flutter shut in pleasure. She does it again and again, until Carmilla’s nails are digging into her shoulders and she’s whimpering quietly in time with the rhythm of Laura's hips. Her head is tossed back, her hair a dark mess against Laura's bright yellow pillow, her eyes shut and her mouth half open while her hips rock up to meet each thrust. It's a pretty great sight, and Laura commits it to memory for future use.

“Laura,” Carmilla whines, and Laura’s pretty sure that’s the first time Carmilla’s referred to her as her actual name, and not cutie or cupcake or sweetheart. She likes the way her name sounds as a breathy gasp coming from Carmilla, but she’ll probably like it more when Carmilla’s moaning it loudly.

“Much as I enjoy grinding like two teenagers in the backseat of a car,” Carmilla groans, her voice ragged. “Are you actually planning on fucking me anytime this decade?”

Laura laughs, “Well, since you asked so nicely.”

Bypassing Carmilla's mouth, she leans down to trail kisses along her jaw and down her throat. Carmilla's hands drift down to her ass, pulling Laura against her harder, and Laura happily complies, picking up the pace of rolling her hips against Carmilla to pull long low moans from her mouth.

Laura moves down to her collarbone, sucking hard as payback for the hickey she can feel blooming on her neck, and smiling when she hears Carmilla groan and feels her shiver underneath her. Laura disposes of Carmilla’s bra quickly, slipping her hands around to Carmilla’s back, unclasping it and pulling it off to throw onto the floor, before peppering kisses down towards her bare chest.

Carmilla whimpers breathily when Laura’s mouth closes around her nipple, flicking her tongue against it and sucking gently. Laura feels hands tangle in her hair to hold her in place and she glances up. Carmilla’s hair is fanned out against the pillow, her bottom lip is pulled between her teeth and she’s watching Laura through dark half-lidded eyes.

Heat surges through Laura at the lust-filled look being directed at her, as does the sudden urge to have Carmilla shaking and gasping underneath her as soon as possible. Once she’s paid an equal amount of attention to Carmilla’s other breast, and Carmilla’s whimpering quietly, her fingers tightening in Laura’s hair and her hips twitching upwards, Laura starts making her way down Carmilla’s body, leaving a trail of light red marks down her stomach — something to remember her by — before she gets to the waistband of Carmilla’s insanely tight pants.

Quickly, she undoes them and peels them off Carmilla’s legs, along with the tiny scrap of red lace that’s masquerading as underwear, before tossing them behind her and raking her gaze over Carmilla's naked body. Laura doesn’t miss the shiver that goes through Carmilla when she pushes her legs apart and licks her lips at the sight of Carmilla wet and open before her, settling back down between them. Sliding her hands around to get a good grip on Carmilla’s hips, Laura leans forward to kiss her way slowly up the inside of her thigh, nipping and sucking as she goes.

A low strangled moan rips its way from Carmilla’s throat at the first stroke of Laura’s tongue, sliding through wet heat from bottom to top, before swirling over her clit. Laura groans quietly at the taste, pressing her tongue back against Carmilla and licking at her relentlessly. She traces light circles around Carmilla’s clit with her tongue, sucks it into her mouth and flicks at it repeatedly with her tongue, licks broad strokes through her, pushes her tongue into Carmilla as deep as she can, all to see what Carmilla likes best.

Carmilla seems to like everything Laura does. Her hips rut up against Laura’s face repeatedly, there’s a constant stream of moans and curse words falling from her lips, and when Laura glances up, Carmilla’s head is thrown back against the pillows, eyes squeezed shut and mouth half open, and her chest is heaving.

The sight sends Laura’s libido skyrocketing again, and her pulse drops to throb between her legs. She doubles her efforts with her tongue, licking and sucking until Carmilla’s whole body is quivering, she’s gasping raggedly, her back is arching, and then she’s coming with a unrestrained and incoherent moan.

Laura laps at Carmilla’s clit a few more times, prolonging the aftershocks, before crawling back up her body, where Carmilla immediately pulls her into a messy kiss. Laura moans into it when she realises Carmilla will be able to taste herself on Laura’s tongue, and shifts to straddle one of her thighs, shamelessly rolling her hips down against it in an attempt to alleviate the ache between her own legs that flared right back up at the sight of Carmilla falling apart.

“Holy shit, you’re good at that,” Carmilla mumbles breathlessly. Laura shivers as Carmilla drags her nails lightly down her back, taking ahold of her hips and encouraging her grinding against Carmilla’s thigh.

Laura groans, and Carmilla smirks, leaning up to kiss her again. “I take it you’re not too tired for another round, then?”

She’s not.

/

Laura wakes up the next morning (afternoon) to the sunlight streaming in through her open curtains, and with the beginnings of a thankfully small hangover. A voice that sounds suspiciously like Danny’s crows the word _lightweight_ gleefully in her head, which doesn't help the headache Laura can feel approaching. She buries her face further into her pillow, trying to will some helpful clouds to take pity on her and drift in front of the sun to make it stop brightening up her room, and catches a whiff of an unfamiliar perfume.

Which is when she remembers she had company last night.

Laura doesn’t hear or feel anyone behind her, and when she rolls over to be met with rumpled sheets and an empty bed it confirms her suspicions that Carmilla’s already left. There’s no sign of any kind of note with a number, or even a _thanks for the sex cutie_ , scrawled at the bottom left on her desk. How rude.

Then again, Carmilla did seem like kind of a douche, so despite how amazing the sex was, it's probably better that the previous night stays an extremely pleasant memory.

Her stomach rumbles loudly, and Laura untangles herself from the sheets and heaves herself out of bed, pulling on clean underwear and the first shirt her hand comes into contact with when she opens her closet.

On her way to the door, she pauses in front of the mirror to inspect the damage left by her guest. There are two visible hickeys, one on her neck and the other just above her left breast, faint smears of lipstick across both nipples and her lower stomach, and Laura doesn’t need to twist round to look at her back to know there’ll be red lines raked into it, courtesy of Carmilla’s nails dragging down her back.

Quickly buttoning the oversized — like, seriously oversized; she thinks it might be Danny’s. Or Kirsch’s. For someone who is absolutely not Danny’s boyfriend, his shirts turn up an awful lot in the laundry — plaid shirt up, Laura steps out of her room, and her gaze immediately lands on the shirt she was wearing last night laying on the floor outside the bathroom door. At the same time, she hears familiar humming coming from the kitchen. Bracing herself for a full twenty-four hour’s worth of teasing and sex jokes, she shuffles into the kitchen.

“Good afternoon you little sex fiend,” Danny beams at her. "There's a trail of your clothes leading down the hallway to your room, so I take it you had a good night?"

Laura grunts an affirmative noise, busying herself with making coffee. She is adamant that it still counts as coffee even if she dumps three teaspoons of sugar and some vanilla syrup in it, despite what Danny claims. Whatever Danny's doing at the stove smells like there’s a large amount of grease and calories involved and it makes Laura’s stomach rumble again.

“Where’s your friend?”

“Left before I woke up,” Laura replies, plonking herself down at the kitchen table with her coffee, awaiting a plateful of Danny's magic hangover cure.

“She good? You get her number? Going to see her again?” Danny bombards her with questions while she distribute scrambled eggs and rashers of bacon onto two plates. A slice of buttered toast follows, and then the plate gets placed in front of Laura for her to dig in to.

“Ugh, you are a goddess,” Laura exaggeratedly moans through a huge mouthful of food. She’s still waiting for the day where she somehow manages to absorb Danny’s cooking talents via osmosis, since Danny’s attempts at helping her expand her cooking skills past sandwiches and picking up the phone to order takeout usually end in situations such as The Waffle-On-Fire Incident, or The Exploding Potato Disaster.

“Thank you. You can address me as Your Highness from now on,” Danny deadpans, before returning to her interrogation. “So, answer the question. Do we need to schedule times when I need to be far, far away from the apartment so you can get your freak on with leather girl?”

Laura quirks an eyebrow in question. She thinks she’d remember introducing Carmilla to Danny. _Hello Dan this is the girl I’m going to spend pretty much the entire night screwing, please stay at Kirsch’s tonight so you aren’t scarred for life, thanks._ “I saw you guys leaving the bar,” Danny explains. Clearly it must've been one of the few moments she didn't have her tongue down Kirsch's throat. “Caught sight of her jacket and the back of her head. It was a nice jacket and back of the head, congrats Hollis. I’m proud.”

“The top of her head’s a nicer view,” Laura says without thinking, laughing when Danny nearly chokes on a forkful of eggs. “And no, don’t worry, I think she was just a one time thing. I didn’t get her number and she didn’t leave a note or anything, so I’m probably never gonna see her again.”

Danny hums in agreement, and changes the subject to something Summer Society related, and Laura lets the previous night drift further away from the forefront of her memory. Really, it’s a big city, so what are the chances of her bumping into Carmilla ever again?

/

After a ten am psychology lecture on Monday morning, Laura has half an hour to make her way to the other side of campus to Professor Klaus’ classroom for her first TA class of the day. She stops at the coffee shop to get some hot chocolate, which the barista manages to screw up twice, and she ends up having to race up the three flights of stairs when the out of order sign on the elevator stares at her mockingly. She dashes into the classroom, only a few seconds after Professor Klaus. Being late her first day might not have made the best impression, and Laura would rather not be subjected to being yelled at by a six foot scary German lady.

Thankfully, the nerves building up in her stomach that she has steadfastly refused to acknowledge are completely unfounded; the class goes smoothly. The room full of students — a lot more than Laura was expecting — actually pay attention to her, and she manages not to embarrass herself by doing something stupid like tripping over on her way to the trashcan.

The class lets out two hours later, Professor Klaus almost immediately dashing out of the door, muttering something about an important meeting and throwing a goodbye over her shoulder at Laura. Laura's not meeting LaFontaine at the library until one pm, so she takes her time packing up her stuff while the students slowly trickle out of the room.

She’s just about to stand up and head out when a familiar voice pipes up. “Hey sweetheart.”

Laura’s head snaps up in horror to see the last person she ever imagined to see in front of her desk, a look of pleased amusement on her face. A look that the last time Laura saw it, she was kissing it off her before going down on her for a third time in one night.

“What are you doing here?” Laura blurts out stupidly. And slightly rudely.

Carmilla raises an eyebrow, a hint of that familiar smirk tugging at her lips. "I’m in your class this semester.”

Oh.

Oh no.

“Um, so you are,” Laura stutters after glancing down at the class list that, had she bothered to look at it, would’ve told her that _Karnstein, Carmilla_ is indeed one of the students in her class.

“I didn’t think you’d realised I was here, so I figured I should uh, come say hello.”

There’s a full blown smirk on her mouth now, a mouth that Laura vividly remembers kissing almost every square inch of her body, and there’s several incredibly inappropriate teacher/student roleplay scenarios flying through her head right now that she absolutely cannot think about because Carmilla is now her student.

Oh God, Carmilla is her _student_. She’s Carmilla’s _teacher_. Sort of.

Carmilla’s staring at her like she knows exactly what kind of dirty things Laura’s thinking, and more worryingly, that she’s thinking the exact same thing.

“Um, thank you,” Laura squeaks, trying to will away the flush she can feel spreading across her face. “You uh, you never mentioned you went to Silas."

“Neither did you,” Carmilla points out with a raised eyebrow. Laura prays the _I didn’t get a chance to tell you I go to Silas because I was too busy fucking you senseless_  is going to go unsaid. "Although I guess we didn't really do much talking, did we?" Guess not.

Laura wonders if this is some kind of nightmare.

Carmilla smiles like she hasn't just reminded her TA of the night they spent a majority of naked. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, Laur- uh, Professor Hollis.”

Oh dear God Laura thinks she’s going to explode.

“I’m not a professor,” she babbles nervously, desperately trying not to think of roleplay scenario number five where Carmilla has her bent over the desk that’s currently separating them. “Just a TA. So uh, you don’t need to call me professor.” _Please don’t call me professor it’s only going to feed my wildly inappropriate fantasies about my student_ is what she wants to say, but doesn’t. Because that would be inappropriate. “Just Laura is fine.”

“Okay,” Carmilla smiles, hitching her red messenger bag further up her shoulder. Laura recognises the jacket she has on as the same one Carmilla was wearing that night, the one that makes her look like a damn goddess in leather. “Laura.”

Laura represses the shudder that tries valiantly to make its way through her body when she remembers the last time she heard her name coming from Carmilla’s mouth, the other girl was moaning it wantonly as she rode three of Laura’s fingers.

“Yeah. Um, see you tomorrow Carmilla,” Laura squeaks, and Carmilla bites her lip like she’s remembering the last time she heard her name in Laura’s voice. If Laura remembers correctly, it was when Carmilla had an arm thrown over her body to keep her hips immobile while her tongue licked her to two consecutive orgasms.

“By the way,” Carmilla says airily as she turns to leave for the door, swaying her hips in a way that Laura is sure is deliberate. Not that she’s looking. Of course not. “Nice scarf.”

Laura blinks in confusion for a second, trying to deduce if there’s an ulterior motive or reason for the compliment, or if Carmilla just really likes blue plaid, before she remembers the enormous hickey still decorating the left side of her neck that the scarf is hiding.

Laura groans loudly into the empty classroom, and she hears Carmilla’s faint laughter drifting in from the hallway.

She is doomed.

/

LaFontaine howls with laughter for at least ten minutes straight, before they make Laura tell them the story again, before laughing for another ten minutes.

“So, you fucked your student,” they grin like this is all a big joke. They’re not the one panicking about their reputation and current employment here.

“She wasn’t my student when we met!” Laura objects. “How the hell was I supposed to know the next time I saw her was going to be in my English class?” She groans, letting her head drop into her hands. “Oh God, I’m going to get fired. I slept with a student, and Professor Klaus and the rest of the administration are going to find out and they’re going to fire me and I’ll probably get sent to prison.”

“I’ll be sure to look out for your guest starring role on the next season of Orange Is The New Black.”

“ _LaFontaine_.”

“Okay, sorry,” they say, holding their hands up in surrender. “Look, you’re not going to go to prison alright? A TA sleeping with one of their students isn’t illegal, it’s just…”

“Wildly unprofessional?” Laura offers.

“Well, yeah,” LaFontaine nods. “Anyway you’re only going to get into trouble, and okay yes, possibly fired, if someone finds out about it, and I take it you’re not going to go running to the Dean to tell her in graphic detail about your roll in the hay with a student?”

“Oh my God no. Dean Morgan terrifies me enough as it is, I don’t need her out for my blood because I couldn’t keep it in my pants.”

“Well do you think Carmilla would tell anyone about it?”

“I don’t know,” Laura whines, dragging out the last word into a long _knooooooow_. “I met the girl once LaF, and we didn’t exactly do a whole lot of talking. All I know about her is what she looks like naked.”

Danny chooses that moment to show up, brandishing her phone and asking what the huge emergency is that she got texted about, multiple times, in all caps, from both Laura and LaFontaine.

“Laura slept with one of her students,” LaFontaine supplies unhelpfully.

“That is not what happened!” Laura squeaks.

“Already?" Danny says, fixing her with an expression that somehow manages to be both disapproving and impressed. "It’s only the first day of the semester Laura.”

Laura rehashes the Carmilla story, LaFontaine laughs for another ten minutes, and Danny gives her a look of sympathy.

“Oh God, that sucks,” she says, glaring at LaFontaine and their muffled laughter on Laura’s behalf. “But is she even technically _your_ student? You’re just a TA.”

“I’m pretty sure it still counts, Danny. Like, I grade papers and I’ll see their test papers before they do and stuff, so I have that like, advantage of power over her or whatever.”

Laura kicks LaFontaine under the table when they mumble something under their breath about a different kind of advantage of power. They squeak _fuck_ louder than intended, and the librarian glares menacingly at all three of them.

“Maybe you should talk to her about it?” LaFontaine suggests, thankfully lowering their voice. “See where she stands on it, and if she’s going to tell any of the faculty about it.”

It’s a good idea. Hopefully Carmilla isn’t interested in airing their indiscretion to anyone of relative importance at Silas, such as the Dean, and they can just pretend it never happened.

“I agree,” Danny pipes up. “Just ask her if she’s going to keep quiet, and if she says no, then you can tell the Dean, or Klaus or whoever first, and they’ll probably just move her to a different class if you explain it properly. And if she says yes, then hallelujah, you’re both safe and no one will have to get fired or transferred,” she continues, making it sound oh so simple. Her eyebrows furrow. “You know, unless you end up fucking her again. You don’t want to though, right?”

A bigger-than-she’d-like-to-admit, extremely immoral part of her screams that yes, she wants to fuck Carmilla again, regardless of who’s a student and who’s a TA, but Laura does her best to squash that annoying part, instead saying, “No, I have no intentions of sleeping with her again. If they don’t fire me for sleeping with a student before she was actually my student, they definitely will if I sleep with her while she is my student.”

“Good point,” LaFontaine says, looking deep in thought. “You know now that I think about it, I heard JP, my biology TA from last year, going on about some kind of policy rulebook he got given.” They raise their eyebrows, waiting to see if Laura has any clue what they’re talking about. Laura vaguely recalls flipping through the handbook full of rules and regulations she got given before shoving it somewhere on her bookcase. “Different schools probably have different policies on things like this, so it’ll probably say in there if you’re prohibited from having, uh…relations with a student.”

“Yeah,” Danny agrees enthusiastically. “Like I said, you’re technically not her teacher, so maybe you’ll be fine.”

Laura can only hope.

/

Rifling through her bookcase later that day, Laura eventually finds the TA handbook wedged between a copy of Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets and the first season of Veronica Mars.

_Teaching Assistants are prohibited from having relationships (whether sexual, romantic or familial in nature) with a student of whom they have authority (evaluative, supervisory or instructional) over. Long-term preexisting relationships must be reported to the department head and/or Dean of Students for discussion and assessment. Failure to comply with these rules will result in removal of the student from the class, and in extreme cases the Teaching Assistant will be relieved of their duties and be terminated from the Silas University staff._

Oh God.

/

Danny suggests a movie night complete with their combined body weight in popcorn to try and get Laura’s mind off it. Two minutes into the movie, Laura realises that it is _not_ Cruel Intentions, and is in fact Bloomington, and slams her bedroom door pointedly after stomping off to escape Danny’s laughing.

She needs new friends.

/

The good news is that Laura successfully makes it through the rest of her first week without making a complete imbecile of herself. The bad news is that Carmilla’s out the door before Laura can catch her on both Tuesday and Friday, and Laura doesn’t see her lurking around campus any other time, so she hasn't had a chance to talk to her about not telling anyone about their...pre-existing acquaintancy. Therefore she's spent the last seven days living in a near constant state of terror that Dean Morgan is going to materialise in a cloud of disappointed smoke to personally fire her from her position.

The following Monday, Laura is resolved to talk to Carmilla, even if she has to chase her down the hallway. It’s not until the students are filing out of the door after the class is dismissed that she starts to feel nervous at the prospect of being alone in a room with Carmilla. Not that anything’s going to happen. It’s just— well the few other one night stands she’s had haven't then turned up in her English class a few days later, so she hasn’t had to deal with any awkwardness that could arise. She's slightly out of her depth here, that's all.

Laura glances up, trying to pick out Carmilla in the sea of people, before spotting her sauntering down from the back row, clad in ripped black jeans and that blasted leather jacket.

“Uh, Miss Karnstein?” Laura calls, and Carmilla’s head jerks up from staring at her phone. “A word, please?”

 _Miss Karnstein_. Laura wants to smack herself in the face. There is literally no way Laura could have worded that without the underlying implications at an offer of round two — or technically a round like, seven or eight — but calling her Carmilla instead of Miss Karnstein might’ve helped.

“Hey,” Carmilla says, stopping in front of her desk and smiling at her. Laura’s thankful she doesn’t bust out any dumb nicknames. Yet.

She waits until the last remaining students have vanished out of the door before looking up at Carmilla. “Have you told anyone?” She blurts out before her brain gives her mouth permission to speak. Carmilla raises an eyebrow. “About, you know, you and I. Us. That we uh, knew each other already.”

“Did I tell anyone that I fucked my TA before I knew she was my TA?” Carmilla chuckles, and Laura tries not to squirm in her chair. “No, I didn’t.” Laura breathes a sigh of relief. Oh thank God. “I don’t kiss and tell. Or fuck and tell,” Carmilla continues, her voice lowering slightly and Laura promptly drops the pencil she’s been fiddling with. “Your job and reputation are both safe, don’t worry cutie.”

Somehow _cutie_ seems a little underwhelming considering Laura still has a vivid memory of Carmilla candidly telling her how hot she is while her fingers worked her into orgasm number three. She’s slightly concerned that _that_ was her first thought upon hearing the nickname, and not that Carmilla shouldn’t be calling her cutie at all.

Anyway.

So, Carmilla might say a few wildly inappropriate things referring to their night together, but she’s not going to rat her out to the Dean. Excellent. Fantastic. Superb.

Now onto a less pressing concern, but one that Laura has nonetheless. “Um, is this going to be weird? For you?”

Cause it’s going to be weird, right? Spending a lot of time in a professional environment with someone you spent an entire night having (amazing, incredible, fantastic) sex with has got to be at least slightly weird.

“Why would it be weird?” Carmilla shrugs, looking annoyingly unruffled.

Laura gapes at her. “Seriously?”

Okay, so Laura doesn’t exactly have an extensive repertoire of one night stands to draw appropriate post-sex etiquette from, but she’s pretty sure there’s got to be at least _some_ residual awkwardness for a little while. Then again Carmilla had hit on her with way too much confidence for it to have been the first time she’s ever chatted up a total stranger in a bar, so maybe Carmilla finds herself in this position all the time.

“No, I mean specifically, which particular part would it make it weird? That we’ve seen each other naked? That I’ve had my fingers inside you? That I know what your tongue feels like on—“

“Carmilla!” Laura hisses, whipping her head round to make sure there’s no one lurking in the doorway to overhear. “I— We— You can’t say stuff like that okay. I’m your teacher.”

“You’re my TA, and somehow I doubt that principle still exists when you’ve already fucked a student,” Carmilla points out, and Laura wants to smack her in the face with the heaviest textbook she can find, just so Carmilla will stop talking. “And besides, that rule and all similar ones only apply to the faculty members. Doesn’t say anywhere that the students are prohibited from fantasising about their professors.” Carmilla pauses to blatantly rake her gaze across Laura. “Or TAs.”

Laura is incredibly glad there’s a desk between them preventing her from doing something completely stupid and impulsive.

“Why, is it gonna be weird for you?” Carmilla asks, and Laura is infinitely glad she doesn’t make another brazen sexual reference to that night. Laura shakes her head minutely, not trusting her voice. “Excellent. No one’s going to tell anyone, and no one’s going to feel weird about it. Glad that's cleared up. Guess I’ll see you around.”

Carmilla smirks at Laura and spins around, heading towards the door without waiting for a reply.

She’s almost out of the room when Laura blurts out, “Wait, why does it matter which part, specifically?” before she can tell herself that it’s probably a stupid question that she doesn’t want to know the answer to.

Carmilla turns around in the doorway and throws a lecherous smirk in Laura’s direction. “Just so I know which bit to not think about next time I touch myself. You know, just so it isn’t _weird_.”

Carmilla winks at her, breezing out the door and leaving Laura sitting slack jawed in the empty room. Definitely a question she didn’t need to know the answer to, because now all she can think about is Carmilla _thinking about her_.

Which is inappropriate.

Because Carmilla is her student.

And she cannot think about her student like this.

Oh God.

/

The first paper Professor Klaus assigns to the class is on Lord of The Flies. Laura spends at least twenty minutes cursing her bad luck, before reluctantly scrawling a big red A at the top of Carmilla’s paper.

The grade is because Carmilla’s paper is annoyingly good. It’s well thought out, well written, and Carmilla clearly has a good grasp on the book. It’s not because of the sex. She's knows that's how it could look, but it has nothing to do with the sex. Laura’s an adult; she’s perfectly capable of thinking rationally with her head, and not irrationally with her vagina.

She's busy wondering if Carmilla being placed in her class like a constant leather clad reminder of her classy one night stand is some kind of karma for when she stopped going to church at age eleven, when Danny finally shows up to the library.

She plops down opposite Laura and raises an eyebrow at Carmilla's paper sitting at the top of the marked pile.

“Wow. She must’ve been amazing in bed.”

Laura groans.

/

 **Danny (12:56pm)** : _i was in the locker room earlier after a track team meeting and i overheard this girl complaining about how 'carmilla' didn't call her after 'the most life changing sex of her life' last night_

 **Danny (12:57pm)** : _your girl gets around_

 **Laura (1:32pm)** : _she's not my girl!!!_

 **Danny (1:35pm)** : _i see you didn’t dispute the sex being life changing_

 **Laura (1:37pm)** : _i hate you so much_

 **Danny (2:56pm)** : _i forgot my house key, can you come down and let me in?_

 **Danny (2:58pm)** : _???_

 **Danny (2:59pm)** : _laura i know you’re home, your window is open and i can hear you singing the wicked soundtrack_

 **Danny (3:05pm)** : _laura!!!_

/

The Thursday that Laura had planned to devote the entire day to studying for her own classes is the same day that Danny invites some of her Summer Society friends over, and they collectively decide on a full volume Mario Kart tournament. Laura huffs and stomps out of the apartment, laden with textbooks, and heads towards the nearest coffee shop when the first shriek of, “Fuck you Yoshi!” is hollered loudly down the hallway.

Once she’s at the creatively named Cafe Styria, a much quieter and less annoying environment than the apartment, Laura buys a latte and a cherry Danish, retreating to an empty table in the corner. She’s halfway through her psychology paper, chewing angrily on a piece of Danish (a second one) because she just can’t get this damn paragraph to sound right, when a voice interrupts her thoughts. “Well hello there, Professor.”

Laura glances up from glaring at her laptop, blinking at the sight of a certain student of hers standing on the other side of the table.

“Carmilla. Hi,” Laura says, unable to help the hopefully subtle once-over her eyes give Carmilla. She’s wearing shorts so tiny they’re probably illegal in some of the more conservative parts of Europe, black knee socks that really do not dissuade Laura’s incredibly inappropriate schoolgirl fantasies starring herself and Carmilla, and a red plaid shirt.

At the greeting, which she apparently takes as an invitation, Carmilla grins and places her coffee cup and chocolate donut down on the table. She nudges one of Laura’s textbooks out of the way so she can place her own down, and sits down in the empty seat opposite Laura.

“Please, feel free to join me,” Laura comments dryly.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Carmilla smiles smugly at her, before gesturing to Laura’s laptop. “What are you working on?”

“Psychology paper,” Laura says, watching Carmilla with mild suspicion. She’s not entirely sure what Carmilla’s doing here, or why she even decided to sit down opposite her, but for whatever reason, Laura doesn’t immediately tell her to get lost. Carmilla’s drink is in a takeaway cup, so clearly she wasn’t intending on staying, and now she’s sat opposite Laura, rifling through her bag for her own laptop and cheerfully informing Laura she has a philosophy paper due in the following day.

Having a study session with Carmilla Karnstein wasn’t exactly what Laura had envisioned when she’d escaped from her Mario Kart hell of an apartment, but an hour later she has to admit that she’s actually enjoying Carmilla’s company. She hasn’t made any inappropriate lewd comments (yet), she doesn’t try to initiate any games of footsie under the table, and when Laura swallows her pride and asks, she reads over parts of Laura’s psychology paper, giving her helpful suggestions about what to change so it doesn’t sound like a third grader wrote it.

There’s a brief moment of panic when Carmilla mentions her brother Will is three years younger than her, and the sudden realisation that Laura has no idea how old Carmilla is smacks her in the face with all the impact of a judge’s gavel sentencing her to jail.

Laura steers the conversation around to birthdays with the subtlety of a fire alarm, and tries not to make her sigh of relief too obvious when Carmilla tells her she turned nineteen in August.

Thank God, Carmilla isn’t some kind of genius sixteen year old child prodigy. Laura’s seen Orange Is The New Black. And Wentworth. And season five of The L Word. She would not survive jail.

Laura has almost managed to forget that a) Carmilla is her student, and b) that she’s slept with her, until Carmilla takes a bite of her donut, accidentally getting a smear of chocolate icing just above her top lip.

Laura watches, her mouth hanging open slightly as Carmilla wipes it off with her finger, immediately sucking the digit into her mouth and licking the icing off. Laura was not aware that someone licking icing off their finger, despite the obvious sexual innuendos of the action, could look quite so pornographic. Laura’s pretty sure that Carmilla over exaggerated on purpose. The smirk and wink thrown in her direction after Carmilla licks her lips confirms Laura’s theory.

“You don’t need to look quite so scared of me, cupcake, I’m not gonna bite you,” Carmilla says, wiggling her eyebrows in lieu of adding some ridiculous pervy comment about how Laura _didn’t seem to mind the biting that night we spent hours fucking, did you sweetheart?_

 _Scared_ isn’t exactly the word Laura would use for how to she feels in regards to Carmilla right now. _Insanely turned on_ is probably more accurate. She’s never going to be able to look at a chocolate donut the same way ever again. That’s one of her five main food groups essentially ruined.

Laura sighs, pushing her laptop out of the way and leaning forward so there’s less chance of anyone overhearing. She pretends not to notice the way Carmilla blatantly stares at her chest, and wishes she’d gone with a damn turtleneck jumper instead of a v-neck one. “Look, Carmilla, this—“ Laura motions between them with an awkward hand gesture. “—it just, um… You know it can’t happen again, right?”

Carmilla raises an eyebrow, lifting her cup towards her mouth to take a sip, clearly waiting for Laura to elaborate.

“I mean I don’t know if you’re just flirting with me for the sake of flirting, or if you’re flirting in an attempt to sleep with me again, but if it’s the latter, it’s not going to happen.” Carmilla stares intensely at Laura over the rim of her coffee cup. Laura shifts uncomfortably under her gaze, opening her mouth to babble some more, just like she does every time she’s nervous. “Because you’re my student, and I’m your teacher—”

“Teacher’s assistant,” Carmilla interrupts, lowering her cup back to the table.

Laura ignores her. “That’s irrelevant, it just— it can’t happen again, okay?”

“Okay,” Carmilla shrugs, a grin spreading over her face. “But what makes you so sure I want to sleep with you again?”

Laura gapes at Carmilla, doing an excellent impression of a stunned goldfish, and she can feel a flush spreading across her face alarmingly quickly. Is it possible to die from extreme humiliation?

“I’m kidding, relax cutie.” Laura’s not entirely sure if Carmilla saying she’s kidding about not wanting to sleep with her again makes her feel better or not. “I know the rules, don't worry.”

Laura isn’t sure if she’s imagining the slight edge of disappointment to Carmilla’s voice. She hopes she is, because even if that does make her seem kind of desperate, at least it means Carmilla really does have zero interest in a repeat performance.

"Anyway, I’m still hungry, so I’m getting another donut,” Carmilla announces, changing the subject abruptly and standing up from the table, looking down at Laura. “You want one?”

Laura opens her mouth, shuts it when she realises she’ll probably accidentally say something stupid like _why don’t you just eat me instead_ , and shakes her head mutely.

/

For all her talk about only flirting for the sake of flirting, and not because she wants to sleep with Laura again, Carmilla seems to amp it up a lot over the next few weeks.

Carmilla’s sitting in the front row when Laura gets to class the day after their little study session. Her left hand is holding the pen she’s absent-mindedly chewing on up to her mouth, the fingers of her right hand drumming against the table while she gazes out of the window. Laura surreptitiously leers at her like a creep while the rest of the students file into the room, nearly dropping her cup of coffee all over herself when she catches sight of Carmilla’s tongue flicking against the end of the pen.

It’s pretty hard to focus on basic tasks such as breathing, or not spilling boiling hot liquid all over herself, when all Laura can think about is how she knows exactly what Carmilla’s fingers and tongue feel like. She doesn’t think she’s ever wanted to be a pen so badly in her life.

Laura’s not sure if Carmilla’s even doing it on purpose, but then Carmilla’s gaze is sliding over to her rapidly enough that Laura is quickly convinced that she knows exactly what she's doing. The corner of Carmilla’s mouth lifts up into a smirk and she winks.

Laura’s mildly worried she’s going to be sent to an early death by suffering a fatal aneurysm in the middle of class if Carmilla doesn’t cut it out.

(Carmilla doesn't cut it out, and two hours later Laura gives serious consideration to locking herself in the fifth floor bathroom that nobody uses and finally giving in to the urge to masturbate over a student. She resists the temptation. Barely.)

/

Late October, there’s a new transfer in the class, a blonde girl that the class list informs her is named Elsie, who seems to take an immediate liking to Carmilla.

Now Carmilla is obviously an...attractive individual, what with the leather and the smirk and the cheekbones — all objectively speaking of course — so Elsie is hardly the first girl that Laura has had to witness fawning over Carmilla instead of paying attention or taking notes. However, she is the first one that Carmilla seems to actively encourage, rather than flirt with for the duration of one class, before disappearing out the door together at the end of the class, and the next day the other girl would be sulking as far away from Carmilla as possible.

(Laura overhears the term _study buddy_ at one point, from a girl she's seen making heart eyes at Carmilla since the beginning of the semester. She doesn't want to know.)

 _Elsie_ goes on for about a week, and Laura steadfastly ignores the feeling she gets in her stomach while subtly watching her drape herself over Carmilla, flat out refusing to put a name to it. Because she can’t be jealous, she just can’t. She’s Carmilla’s teacher. Elsie isn’t. There’s nothing stopping Elsie and Carmilla from dating or kissing or doing everything that Laura and Carmilla are prohibited from doing.

It’s also a ridiculous idea that she’s jealous because it’s not like she _likes_ Carmilla. They slept together once, and okay yes, Carmilla’s papers are always interesting and well written and Laura enjoys reading them, and the one study session revealed that, while frequently bitingly sarcastic, Carmilla’s actually funny, but even disregarding the student/teacher thing, they barely know each other anyway.

And fine, maybe she wouldn't say no to sleeping with Carmilla again, but Carmilla was pretty phenomenal, incredibly hot and could go for like, hours, so who wouldn’t want a repeat performance? But considering the repercussions of sleeping with a student, it can’t happen again, so Laura is resigned to simply being distracted by Carmilla while simultaneously wrestling with an internal morality crisis for two hours, three times a week.


	2. Chapter 2

Laura’s honestly surprised a sex dream doesn't occur sooner.

It happens alarmingly quickly. At first it’s just a normal (or at least normal for her) dream about giant cookies, talking chocolate teapots, and a choir of singing muffins belting out an acapella version of Hot For Teacher, probably induced by too much sugar and that weird late night documentary on donuts she found in the depths of Netflix. And then out of nowhere, she’s on her back with a very familiar head bobbing in between her legs, not a single sentient baked good in sight.

The sound of the front door slamming loudly — Danny stumbling home from ‘just one or two drinks’ with some of her Summer Society sisters — wakes Laura up, and even in her half-asleep state she’s conscious enough to register how ridiculously turned on she is.

At some point she’s kicked the blankets off, but her entire body still feels too hot, and there's an ache between her legs induced by the vivid fantasy — memory — of Carmilla that is proving extremely difficult to ignore. She struggles with the small part of her screaming about ethics for an embarrassingly short time, before thinking  _fuck it_ , and pushing her hand into her shorts, biting her lip hard so as to not alert Danny what she’s up to when her fingers make contact with her dripping centre.

 _I’m going to Hell_ , she thinks as she recalls Carmilla’s face, contorted in ecstasy during one of the many times she came around Laura’s fingers that night. That first thought is like a catalyst for all the memories Laura tried so desperately to repress to come flooding back, and she can't stop the blur of vividly detailed pictures playing back in her head, of Carmilla kissing her way down her body, Carmilla gasping and moaning for her not to stop, Carmilla's hands and mouth all over her body.

Laura slides her fingers inside herself, pretending they're Carmilla's — she’s  _definitely_  going to Hell — moving her other hand down to rub at her clit, and it doesn't take much before she's coming with a low moan.

This better not become a habit, Laura muses as she tries to catch her breath. She never feels any shame over masturbating, but there is a small modicum of remorse when the object of her fantasies happens to be her student. If Carmilla’s going to be who her brain decides to picture whenever she’s even remotely turned on, Laura’s going to need to look into converting to a life of nunnery.

/

Inevitably, because the universe apparently hasn’t played enough cruel jokes on her yet, Laura bumps into Carmilla at a party in early November.

It’s Kirsch’s birthday, and where there is an apartment full of Zeta frat boys, there will also be copious amounts of alcohol just waiting to tempt Laura into doing something wildly stupid, so she tries to get out of it. She relents and agrees to go when Danny points out, “If you’re worried about sleeping with another student, it won’t happen, cause now you’ll recognise them.” If only so she can not drink, watch Danny get extremely drunk, and hold her antics over her head for a good few months.

A few hours into the party, she’s in the kitchen and only on her second drink, when she catches sight of a vaguely familiar back of someone’s head. Her stomach drops when the two Zetas blocking her view decide to take their making out someplace else, the familiar someone turns so Laura can see her face and she realises that yep, that is indeed Carmilla. Her stomach twists for a much more different reason when she takes note of exactly what Carmilla’s wearing.

She’s seen the leather pants before, although they’re just as hot as usual, but the (tiny) corset is a new sight, that makes Laura want to fuck her (again) more than usual.

She spins around, intent on escaping from the kitchen containing her very fuckable student, finding Danny, faking feeling ill and going home. Her escape plot is foiled when, upon scampering into the hallway, she collides with Kirsch.

“Hey little nerd!” Kirsch says cheerfully. “So Theo just opened that huge bottle of tequila someone brought, wanna come do shots with us?”

Oh no. Tequila is not a good idea. Tequila is a very, very bad idea. Tequila generally leads to people doing stupid things, like sleeping with their students.

“I’m the uh, designated driver.”

_Good one Hollis. Very believable._

“You and Danny live like a two minute walk from me.”

Shit.

“Designated...walker?”

“Oh, okay. Cool.” Laura makes a mental note to thank Danny for her taste in men with low brain activity. Kirsch’s confusion vanishes, and he brightens up. “Well hey if you’re not gonna do shots, there’s someone here you should totally meet. She’s hot, you’re hot, and the more hotties the merrier.” Kirsch nudges her in the side and wiggles his eyebrows. “And she totally bats for your team, which is awesome for you.”

Thank God, an opportunity to avoid Carmilla. Laura even doesn’t bother objecting to  _hottie_  or the fact that Kirsch seems to think  _you’re both totally hot_  means they’ll have anything in common, just as long as this mystery person keeps her occupied away from Carmilla.

“Carm!” Kirsch yells, loudly, across the kitchen.

Oh no.

“Hey, Wednesday Addams, get over here,” Kirsch continues with a cheerful wave to the no-longer-a-mystery someone behind Laura.

Of fucking course.

“Can I help you with something, beefcake?” Carmilla’s bored voice sounds over the loud music, a second before she appears in Laura’s peripheral vision. She turns to Laura with an equally bored expression, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise when recognition sets in.

“Nerd hottie, this is Carmilla. She’s in my creative writing class this year,” Kirsch pipes up, completely oblivious. “Scary hottie, this is Laura, Danny’s best bro and she was in my English class last year.”

“Oh we’ve actually met already,” Carmilla says, grinning widely from ear to ear, and when Kirsch asks how they know each other, Laura resolves herself to plying him with shots for the rest of the night so he’s drunk enough to completely forget whatever is about to come out of Carmilla’s mouth. She breathes a sigh of relief when, instead of  _we hooked up two days before the semester_  or  _I spent the better half of two hours with my head between her legs_  or any other number of disturbing things that could’ve been shared, Carmilla says, “She’s my English TA.”

“Wait…” Kirsch says slowly, looking between them with furrowed eyebrows before breaking into an enormous grin, and Laura gets the distinct feeling he knows something she doesn’t. “You’re her English TA?” The grin vanishes as quickly as it appeared when Carmilla glares daggers at him, and he immediately scurries away, muttering something about getting another drink.

“What was that about?” Laura asks, raising an eyebrow at Kirsch’s retreating back.

“I may have mentioned you to him once or twice.”

“You talk about me?” Laura asks, ignoring the fact that apparently they now share a mutual friend. That isn’t exactly conducive to her plans of keeping Carmilla as far out of her life as possible. She is incredibly thankful she chose to only tell Danny and LaFontaine about Carmilla, since it appears Kirsch already knows Carmilla, and much as Laura likes him, he does have a reputation of being incapable of keeping his mouth shut.

"No need for you to panic cupcake, all I've told them is that my TA is cute. Nothing that scandalous," Carmilla smirks, leaning against the counter and looking irritatingly attractive while doing so. "I haven't aired any details of our wonderful night together if that's what you're worried about, and I certainly haven't told them about how I spend a good majority of your class imagining you bending me-"

"Oh my God shut up," Laura hisses. She could've done without knowing that apparently their fantasies involving the desk match up completely in terms of who bends who over what.

Carmilla chuckles. “You know it’s kind of hurtful that you so adamantly pretend we didn’t have sex.”

“I’m not pretending we didn’t, I’m just choosing to not acknowledge it,” Laura huffs, furtively glancing around behind Carmilla to make sure Danny or Kirsch or The Dean are not anywhere in the vicinity.

“Why?”

“You seriously have to ask?” Laura asks in the most deadpan tone of voice she can muster, eyebrows raised as Carmilla shrugs and nonchalantly brings the red cup she’s holding up to her mouth.

Carmilla tips her head back as she finishes off her drink, and Laura watches the way her throat moves as she swallows for a split second before wrenching her eyes away and staring pointedly at the letter magnets stuck to the refrigerator next to them, artfully spelling out the word  _penis_.

“Well are you choosing to not acknowledge it because I’m your student?” Carmilla asks. “Because I wasn’t when we met.”

“Carmilla that’s not—"

“Or are you choosing to not acknowledge it because if you do, you’ll have to admit to yourself that you want it to happen again?” Laura honestly doesn’t think she’s ever met anyone quite as arrogant as Carmilla Karnstein. “Because, you know, it’d be nice to know if this wasn’t a one way thing.”

Since they've been keeping their voices low so as not to alert any eavesdroppers to their conversation subject, they've gravitated closer and closer in order to be heard over the loud music, but it's not until Carmilla finishes talking that Laura realises just how close they are.

“I thought you said you didn’t want to sleep with me again?” Laura says, because that’s the first thing that pops into her head. It’s also the last thing she should’ve said. Actually, maybe second-last. Last would probably be something along the lines of  _it is absolutely not a one way thing, shall we find an empty bedroom and get reacquainted?_

“I lied," Carmilla shrugs, folding her arms under her chest, and Laura puts every ounce of concentration into making sure her eyes stay on Carmilla’s face. "I mean I can still recall everything pretty clearly, but I wouldn't mind a refresher about what you look like naked and moaning my name."

Oh no. Carmilla's voice has lowered to the particular tone that makes Laura want to tear her clothes off and push her down onto the nearest horizontal surface.

Carmilla inches closer, cocking her head to the side and fixing Laura with a feral smirk. "And don't tell me I'm supposed to believe that you don't want to fuck me again. I've seen the way you look at me in class when you think I'm not looking."

_Good going, Hollis. Very subtle._

This would be a spectacular time for someone to show up and interrupt them, before Laura does something monumentally idiotic like take Carmilla up on the offer that is clearly being made. The universe apparently decides to stop laughing at her for a few minutes, and takes pity on her in the form of Danny bouncing happily into the kitchen.

Danny throws a questioning look at the back of Carmilla, probably wondering if there’s flirting going on and if she shouldn’t interrupt, but thankfully appears to be able to read the panicked  _please come here and save me oh my God_  look in Laura’s eyes, and makes her way over to them.

“Hey Laura,” she says, loudly announcing her arrival. “I was just looking for you.”

Likely a complete lie; Danny was probably looking for Kirsch. But Laura is infinitely glad Danny found her first. She doesn’t want to think about what she would’ve done if left uninterrupted with Carmilla and the way Carmilla is ravenously staring at her mouth.

"You going to introduce me to your friend?" Danny asks, equally oblivious as Kirsch had been, as she shoots an interested look at Carmilla and then an impressed look at Laura. Carmilla, meanwhile, regards Danny with a look like she suspects the redhead of running over her cat with a steamroller.

“This is Danny, my roommate,” Laura says to Carmilla, before turning to the other point of their triangle and praying that Danny doesn’t do or say anything embarrassing. “Danny, this is Carmilla."

To her credit, Danny manages not to react all that much. Her eyes widen slightly in recognition, before she slaps on a cheerful smile and turns to Carmilla. “Nice to meet you.” And then ruins it by grinning at Laura and asking, “So how do you two know each other?”

“She’s in my English class,” Laura says before Carmilla can even open her mouth.

“But your boyfriend tried to introduce us,” Carmilla adds on. Laura tries not to let anything show when the realisation washes over her that Kirsch unwittingly tried to set her up with Carmilla.

This party is a disaster.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Danny replies automatically, flushing the same colour as the red solo cup Laura’s still holding in her hand.

“Oh my mistake. You’re just sleeping together then?” Carmilla asks, clearly entertained by the strangled squeak Danny makes and the way she opens and closes her mouth like a goldfish floundering for a response. Laura finds it similarly amusing for all of two seconds before Carmilla turns to her with a faux-innocent expression and, like it's a completely normal thing to say, asks, “So how do you feel about no strings attached sex Laura?”

Laura’s jaw is starting to hurt from keeping up the faked polite smile.

Someone calls Carmilla’s name, sparing Laura from having to come up with an answer to Carmilla’s question, and upon turning her head to see who’s helpfully saving her from this awkward conversation, Laura tries not to implode with jealousy when she spies Elsie beckoning Carmilla over from where she’s standing next to a tall supermodel of a blonde girl.

(And okay yes, she’s woman enough to admit that she’s jealous by now. Whatever.

Although on second thought, Carmilla did just kindly inform Laura of her desires to sleep with her again, so either Carmilla and Elsie are a) not actually a thing and therefore there’s no reason to be jealous, or b) an open relationship thing which Laura definitely does not want to get mixed up in.

Or Carmilla’s just a bigger dick than Laura originally thought.)

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” Carmilla says to Danny in a voice that implies she found meeting Danny as pleasant as swallowing a rusty knife. “See you on Monday, Laura.”

“You too,” Danny beams, throwing in a little wave as Carmilla stalks off towards Elsie.

Laura watches her until she disappears into the hallway with Elsie and Karlie Kloss’ long lost twin, her entire attention span taken up by the way Carmilla's leather pants cling to her ass.

“Wow,” Danny says unhelpfully. “I totally get it now, she’s hot.” She laughs, and then adds on an equally unhelpful, “You’re so fucked.”

/

After steadfastly ignoring Carmilla’s presence Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday morning Laura oversleeps after foolishly staying up way too late the previous night binge watching Elementary, and only wakes up when Danny barges into the room and smacks her over the head with a pillow.

Danny watches with barely concealed amused glee as the panic Laura feels upon looking at her alarm clock shows on her face, but at least has the decency to go through to the kitchen and butter some toast for Laura while she leaps around her room, yanking on the first clean clothes that come to hand upon opening the closet. She throws her hair into a messy ponytail and spritzes herself with perfume in the hopes that it’ll cover up at least some of the classy  _I haven’t showered_  aura she’s sure she’s sporting, and shoves her glasses onto her face while dashing out the front door, slice of toast wedged in her mouth.

The second her lecture finishes, Laura dashes out the door and makes a beeline for the nearest bathroom so she can attempt to fix the bird’s nest that her hair resembles.

The one bright spot in her day is that, since it’s a Wednesday, she won’t have to deal with Carmilla and her general distractingness during class, so of course, out of the however many thousands of students that attend Silas, Carmilla is the one that comes strolling into the bathroom a couple minutes after Laura. And  _of course_  Carmilla looks like she’s just stepped out of the pages of a damn Vogue magazine. As per usual. If Laura wasn’t so unbelievably attracted to her she’d probably be seething with jealousy at how Carmilla always seems to look like she’s just finished strutting down a catwalk.

“Hey sunshine,” Carmilla says cheerfully, sliding up next to Laura, and  _really_ , out of the armada of nicknames Carmilla has, sunshine is the one she goes with? Laura gets the feeling she’s being mocked.

Laura grunts a half-hearted hello back. Maybe if she just ignores Carmilla she’ll leave her alone and go find someone else to harass.

“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” Carmilla continues, apparently not getting the message that Laura wants her to go away. “Didn’t realise it was possible for you to get cuter.”

Laura’s still half-asleep despite her brief nap in class, and she isn’t really in the mood to deal with Carmilla’s vague flirting. “What do you want Carmilla?”

“You mean aside from to drag you into one of these nice empty cubicles and lock the door?”

Something, Laura’s not sure what — maybe it’s the slightly mocking tone of Carmilla’s voice, maybe it’s the mounting terror that she knows her restraint is gradually getting worn down and she’s going to end up jumping Carmilla again at some point, or maybe she’s just too tired to deal with Carmilla — makes her snap.

“Carmilla I’m serious,” Laura snaps, whirling round to glare at Carmilla. “Why are you doing this? Why do you keep flirting with me and implying you want to sleep with me again?”

“Because I do?” Carmilla says casually, leaning against the sink and folding her arms. “I thought we went over this at the party.”

Laura wonders if she’ll get into trouble for punching a student in the face.

“So, what, you just want a victory lap and then you can move onto the next unsuspecting TA? Or is that the point, you want to sleep with me  _because_  I’m your TA and  _because_  you know it’s against the rules? Or because _Elsie_  or one of the numerous other girls than fawn all over you in class are all busy?”

Well that little outburst was the very picture of professionalism.

Carmilla just watches her with an unreadable expression for a few moments, looking annoyingly calm.

“Who says I want it to be just sex?” Carmilla eventually asks, and Laura isn’t entirely sure if she’s imagining the shred of vulnerability that makes its way into Carmilla’s voice.

“And by that you mean you want to sleep with me  _more_  than just one more time?”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Carmilla grumbles, staring with great interest at the wall behind Laura.

It takes a few seconds, but then it clicks.

It’s wildly inappropriate, and Laura shouldn’t be entertaining the idea in the slightest, but she’s oddly flattered that someone like Carmilla appears to have a crush on her. Her. Someone straight out of a fantasy-fanfiction-land with cheekbones probably carved out of marble by the Greek Gods themselves, has a crush on nerdtastic little Laura Hollis, in all of her dorky glory.

“Okay,” Laura says slowly. “Just so we're clear here and I’m not misreading anything, you don’t just want to sleep with me again, but you actually want to stick around after as well? Like, for non sex-related activities? Like dates?”

“Is that so difficult to believe?” Carmilla huffs, sounding mildly offended.

"You left before I even woke up the next morning. And you didn't even leave a note with your number and a polite  _call me sometime cutie_  or a crass  _really enjoyed spending lots of time with my head between your legs cutie we should do it again sometime_." Somehow, Carmilla looks more offended at Laura’s impersonation of her. “So yeah, kinda difficult to believe.”

Carmilla shrugs. "Look, I honestly thought I was never going to see you again. That’s why I didn’t bother leaving a note, and yeah I know that makes me sound like a dick but it’s the truth. I saw you at the bar, thought you were hot so I went and hit on you, but I didn’t approach you with the intentions of anything more than just sex.” Carmilla does have a point. They spent about the grand total of two minutes talking before Laura kissed her, and they left the bar after having only known each other about fifteen minutes, so it’s not like Laura didn’t  _know_  it was supposed to be just a one night stand. “I never planned on seeing you again, but then it turns out that you're my English TA. Clearly this is fate."

Laura can’t help but laugh. Somehow she doubts the  _it was fate, we’re meant to be_  excuse would hold up if Dean Morgan brought her in for questioning.

“And I admit that at first I just enjoyed flirting with you,” Carmilla continues, taking a small step forward. Laura gulps, and prays that Carmilla failed to notice the way her eyes dropped down to glance at her lips. “Riling you up, getting you all flustered, it was fun to watch.”

Of course all of Carmilla’s flirting was deliberate, not just a byproduct of her personality. Should've known.

“But somewhere along the line, it became more than that. And I couldn’t really help it. There’s just...something about you.” Carmilla pauses, and glances down at Laura’s outfit. “Although, no offence cutie but I don’t think it’s your fashion sense. What did you do, run into a pile of clothes this morning and just see what stuck to you?”

“Oh God, please don’t,” Laura groans. “I overslept this morning and Danny ending up waking me up like ten minutes before I had to leave the apartment, so I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to make myself look presentable. It doesn’t look that bad does it?”

Laura’s exceptionally glad she doesn’t have TA duties today. She gets the feeling Professor Klaus might not be overly impressed with her turning up to class in a jumper emblazoned with a picture of a cupcake and a caption of  _stud muffin_.

Carmilla laughs. “No, don’t worry you still look cute.”

Huh. Laura was expecting a delightful  _I’d still fuck you_. Maybe Carmilla is capable of being polite sometimes.

“Although as...interesting a pattern as those alarmingly bright pants have, it’s my humble opinion that you’d look better out of them.”

Ah, that’s more like it.

Laura turns to face Carmilla, pointedly ignoring the churning swarm of butterflies — and butterflies?  _Really_? What is she, fourteen? — at the close proximity. Carmilla’s near enough to her that she’d barely have to move forward to be within kissing distance, which is not something she should be thinking about at all.

“Carmilla I— you know this can’t happen.” Laura bites her lip nervously for a few seconds, before throwing caution to the wind. “At the very least it can’t happen now. Not while you’re still my student.”

It’s probably the closest she’s comfortable getting to admitting to Carmilla that she feels the same way.

“Yeah,” Carmilla sighs. “I know.”

/

There’s a brief three day spell where Laura is suitably distracted from daydreaming about a parallel universe where she never thought about applying to become a TA, and Carmilla is her one-night-stand-turned-doting-girlfriend, by the colossal argument Danny and Kirsch end up having about the status of their supposedly no strings attached relationship.

Laura plays the perfect best friend, ditching her study session with LaFontaine to binge watch b-horror movies with Danny, agreeing with all of the sniffled  _he’s such a dick_  comments, making sure the freezer is fully stocked with ice cream, and she resolutely holds back all of her snide  _I told you so_  comments.

(Because honestly, sleeping with a friend never stays  _just_  sex. Everybody knows that.)

But because Danny and Kirsch are some kind of disgusting real life fairytale, they make up three days later when Kirsch shows up with flowers, and Laura is promptly sexiled from the apartment. She escapes to LaFontaine’s to study, and rolls her eyes when the first thing she sees upon opening Facebook to procrastinate her paper is  _Danny Lawrence is now in a relationship with Wilson Kirsch_.

“Finally,” she grumbles, clicking the like button underneath it and ignoring the mild twinge of jealousy in her stomach that Danny is able to be in a relationship with the person she likes.

/

 _This is a terrible idea. This is a really terrible idea. This is payback that Carmilla 100% deserves, but it’s still a really, really, terrible idea_ , Laura thinks, standing in front of her mirror while she holds two ties, borrowed from LaFontaine’s absurdly large collection, up to her neck, trying to decide which one looks better.

The previous day, after class ended — a class that Carmilla had spent a good portion of sitting with her tiny-shorts-clad legs spread lewdly wide, sliding her tongue over the rim of her water bottle every time Laura happened to look in her direction — Laura had glanced up just in time to see Carmilla sauntering past with her arm flung around Elsie’s shoulders, and the words  _I like a girl in a tie_  were said loud enough for her to hear.

Carmilla had stared right at her while she said it, a stupid seductive smirk on her stupid pretty face, so Laura knows Carmilla only said it to mess with her head, and she knows Carmilla’s obviously baiting her, and she  _knows_  she definitely shouldn’t be taking said bait, but underneath all her TA responsibilities, she’s still a twenty-two year old college student with a petty streak a mile wide, and Carmilla deserves a taste of her own medicine.

Although maybe the suspenders are a bit much. Actually no, Carmilla still deserves it.

(Danny takes one look at her when Laura walks into the kitchen and comments that she had no idea Pride got moved to November this year. Laura ignores her.)

Carmilla nearly chokes on the sip of water she’s taking when she walks into class and catches sight of the navy blue tie around Laura’s neck, and  _wow_  Laura totally gets it now. Torturing your potential love interest with appealing aesthetics is fun. No wonder Carmilla wears her leather pants so often.

Unthinkingly, Laura mouths the word  _payback_  at Carmilla as she’s walking past her desk towards a free seat, and muffles a laugh at the way Carmilla almost trips over her own feet.

It’s fairly obvious that Carmilla isn’t paying the slightest bit of attention during class, and she spends the majority of the time staring at Laura like she’s remembering what she looks like naked. In great detail. It’s actually a little unnerving having Carmilla stare at her like she’s edible for the entire two hours, since Carmilla is at least somewhat subtle most of the time, but Laura isn’t exactly complaining.

By the time class has finished and the room is beginning to empty, heat is starting to pool low in her stomach from the way Carmilla’s been looking at her. It's embarrassing, but she's already grappling with which option to go with later, out of a cold (very cold) shower or locking her bedroom door and trying not to picture Carmilla's face in too much detail so she can just pretend it's a nameless faceless woman she's getting herself off to.

(It hasn't worked so far, and each time Laura's ended up coming with Carmilla's face at the forefront of her mind.)

“Hey.” Laura’s sitting at her desk, shuffling papers into piles ready for grading later when Carmilla pauses beside her desk for today’s conversation of vague flirting and blunt sexual innuendos. “Are you free later this evening? Around six, six-thirty?”

Laura’s mouth drops open in shock. Okay sure, the suspenders and tie are a winning combination on any girl so she can’t really blame Carmilla for trying, but Carmilla can’t seriously be flat out propositioning her, can she?

“I, um. Carmilla we’ve been over this a hundred times,” Laura whispers, furtively looking around the class behind Carmilla to make sure no one still loitering in the room is listening to them. “You know nothing can happen again. I mean you’re hot, and I’m enjoying your papers, and that study session at the cafe wasn’t the worst experience of my life, and you were, you know, really good and everything, but you’re still my student so we can’t do…this.” Laura trails off lamely, confused at Carmilla’s amused grin that’s growing wider by the second.

“Laura, I wasn’t asking you on a date." Oh. "Or for another illicit hookup in an empty classroom, or whatever other dirty fantasy was just going through that pretty head of yours."  _Jesus Christ_. "I was asking if your office hours were free then because I have a couple questions about that paper that’s due in next week.”

“Oh.  _Oh_.” Laura is fairly positive her current impression of a tomato could win awards for its accuracy. “Oh my God.”

Carmilla’s lips are pressed together in an attempt to not laugh at Laura’s utter idiocy and humiliation. She appreciates it.

“So, are you free at six-thirty for some completely platonic homework questions, Professor Hollis?” Nothing about Carmilla’s question sounds even remotely platonic thanks to the suggestive tone of her voice.

Laura pointedly ignores the flash of heat that goes through her body at  _Professor Hollis_. “I told you to stop calling me that. But yes, six-thirty is fine.”

“Perfect, I’ll see you then,” Carmilla grins at her, her eyes momentarily dipping down to look at Laura’s tie with interest before she breezes out the door.

/

Briefly, Laura considers faking a heart attack. Or a seizure. Maybe a sudden onset bout of the plague. Something serious or contagious or life-threatening enough that mean she won’t have to be stuck in a room alone with Carmilla and her voice that somehow manages to make everything sound like a suggestive proposition. She then decides that that’s ridiculous, and she isn’t going to be scared away by one little student, no matter how intimidatingly attractive said student is.

She’s busy distracting herself from thinking about Carmilla by grading, narrowing her eyes at Elsie’s paper and wondering if it really is only C material, or if it’s just her own jealousy that’s telling her it deserves the low mark. This latest moral crisis is interrupted by a knock at the door, and Laura looks up to see Carmilla in the doorway.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Laura zeroes in on the two takeaway cups Carmilla is holding. “Um, what are those?”

“Hazelnut latte,” Carmilla says, shutting the door behind her — Laura tries not to read too much into that — and sauntering towards the desk. She places one of the cups down in front of Laura and settles down in the chair opposite her. “Figured it was your drink of choice considering you had like, three of them the time we were at Cafe Styria.”

Laura takes a second to wonder if her student buying her coffee is against the rules, before deciding that one cup of coffee is nothing compared to some of the lines that have already been crossed.

“Thank you,” Laura says, taking a sip and choosing to completely ignore the realisation that Carmilla has put sugar in the coffee already. “Uh, so you had some questions about the paper?”

Laura’s been suspicious as to whether Carmilla actually did have questions or if she was just playing some game with her since she brought it up earlier that day, but as Carmilla launches into a monologue about being unable to decide between two separate books to write her paper on, Laura realises it’s actually genuine.

She also realises she’s completely zoned out for the last minute or so Carmilla’s been talking, too busy staring at her hands as they’re waving around to emphasise a point.

“So I narrowed it down to either The Crucible or The Age of Innocence, and I was hoping to get your opinion on which book would be a better fit for my paper,” Carmilla finishes, and Laura does her best to act like she has any idea what Carmilla’s just said.

She nods. Nodding is always good. Nodding usually gives the impression that you’ve been listening and not been busy thinking about the other person’s hands on your bare skin. “Okay. Well. They’re both excellent subject matters, so I’m sure you could get a good, substantial essay out of them both.”

“Which did you prefer?”

“What?”

“Out of The Crucible or The Age of Innocence? Because you did mention that you’ve been enjoying my papers.” Laura wants to go back in time and punch herself in the face. “And I’d hate to start disappointing you now.”

How the hell does Carmilla manage to make every single sentence, even the most banal ones, sound flirtatious?

“Well your papers are hardly graded based on how much they entertain me, but uh, personally I prefer The Age of Innocence,” Laura says, and before she can stop herself adds on, “Everybody loves a good forbidden love story.”

Carmilla smirks, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the desk and she regards Laura the way a lion would regard its potential dinner.

“Another thing we have in common,” Carmilla purrs. “There’s just something enticing about forbidden romance stories, don’t you think?” Her voice lowers, and Laura tries not to squirm in her chair. “About two people who want each other so much, but they’re bound by familial ties, or the relationship doesn’t adhere to societal standards. There’s always so much tension, so much desire lacing all that restraint and all that buildup.” Has it always been this warm in the classroom? “Makes it all the more satisfying when the desire for the other person takes over and snaps that restraint."

Laura is never going to be able to look at a copy of The Age of Innocence normally ever again. She’s relatively certain Edith Wharton did not intend for her book to be used for such nefarious purposes when it was first written.

“Um.” Laura clears her throat. “Well that’s...interesting. But like I said, I’m sure you’ll be able to produce an excellent paper regardless of which one you pick, and I, uh look forward to reading it,” Laura says, mentally congratulating herself for managing to keep her voice steady, even with Carmilla staring at her like she wants to leap across the desk at her. “Um, so I guess that’s all then.”

Laura stands up, picking up the small pile of books sitting at the edge of her desk with the intention of returning them to the bookcase. Because that is all. The conversation is over. Carmilla will take the hint, get up, say goodbye, and walk out of the door without making any lewd comments or blatantly sexual innuendos.

Obviously, that is not what happens. Laura turns around from placing the books back in their rightful places, and Carmilla is lounging in her chair, her lap looking far too inviting for Laura to be fully comfortable with, watching her with an unreadable expression.

“Anything else I can help with?” Laura asks, ever the picture of professionalism.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“I feel like you’re going to even if I say no,” Laura grumbles as she makes her way back to the desk.

“What exactly is it that’s holding you back?”

 _Oh God_ , Laura thinks,  _here we go again_.

“Holding me back from what?” She huffs, just to stall for time, stopping at the side of the desk and shuffling some papers around to avoid looking at Carmilla.

“You know what.”

“Can’t say that I do,” Laura shoots back, glancing helplessly towards the door and praying that one of the other students has questions about the essay. It’s a big class, it’s not too much too ask that someone else isn’t one hundred per cent certain of their topic, is it?

Carmilla chuckles, and Laura tears her gaze from the sadly still-closed door to see Carmilla standing up from the chair, stepping around the corner of the desk to face Laura fully. “Do you really think that I haven’t noticed the way you look at me?” Laura shifts nervously.

Carmilla smiles at her, and Laura suddenly feels like a very small, very defenseless animal about to be pounced on and devoured by a very large, very hungry predator, such as a panther. Carmilla reaches a hand forward, tracing a single finger down the front of the tie before taking hold of the bottom. She starts twirling it around her hand, pulling Laura closer slowly. Laura, apparently no longer weighed down by inconvenient things like morals, lets herself be tugged forward and forward until she’s inches from Carmilla.

“You know, if I’m right, and when it comes to things like this I usually am,” Carmilla continues with a smile, and Laura vaguely recalls her saying something similar the night they first met. “I think you want this just as much as I do.”

It takes every ounce of self-restraint to not just pounce on Carmilla there and then.

“What I want doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. You and me happen, I could get fired," Laura says helplessly. "You’re asking me to risk my job and my reputation for you. And believe me I do...want this— want you. I really do,” she admits quietly, bracing herself for the full force of all of Carmilla’s smug arrogance.

It doesn’t come. Carmilla just tugs her another inch closer by her tie. “So why don't you act on how you feel?"

"Carmilla, look,” Laura starts, and Carmilla’s face falls a fraction, like she’s waiting to hear yet another rejection. “I like having a job. I especially like the monetary benefits that accompany this job that help pay for important things like my cookie fund, and my Netflix subscription, and the rent on my apartment."

Carmilla smiles, which is not helping Laura’s plans of  _let her down gently and then get out of the room and away from her distractingly attractive self as fast as humanly possible_. Carmilla lets go of the tie and places her hand on Laura’s hip, an inch or two too low to be considered just friendly — or as friendly as you’re supposed to get with your TA — and Laura tries not to leap six feet in the air.

“So, getting fired is the only thing stopping you?” She asks, like it’s not a remotely legitimate reason that Laura isn’t throwing herself at Carmilla.

“Yes,” Laura admits, because it’s true. The fact she’s Carmilla’s teacher _is_ the only thing holding her back. If they’d met under literally any other circumstances — if Laura hadn’t moved in with her best friend the summer after junior year and had instead put out a roommate ad which Carmilla had replied to and they’d ended up living together, or if Carmilla had been her grumpy-but-super-hot regular barista whom Laura awkwardly flirted with until she scrawled her number onto Laura’s takeaway cup, or if Carmilla wasn’t a Silas University student and they’d ended up meeting at a party through a mutual friend trying to set them up — she would’ve given in to Carmilla’s flirting a long, long time ago.

“So, why don’t we just not tell anyone?” Carmilla whispers. “I can keep a secret.”

Oh God she’s actually considering this. Dating a student. The warmth of Carmilla’s palm on her hip is probably impairing her judgement but she’s actually considering this. Maybe she’s gone insane. Finally snapped under the constant pressure of constant sexual frustration.

Carmilla walks the fingers of her other hand slowly up Laura’s tie, pausing briefly when she reaches the knot and collar of her shirt, like she’s waiting for Laura to come to her senses, shove Carmilla away and run out of the classroom to transfer to a different university.

When Laura doesn’t do anything, because she’s given up fighting it, Carmilla’s hand slips up to cup Laura’s jaw. The brief touch is all it takes for all of Laura’s (few) remaining morals and ethics and responsibilities and restraints to go leaping out of the nearest window. She huffs out a defeated  _oh God_  under her breath and reaches out to cup Carmilla’s face, giving her just enough time for realisation to set in before she pulls Carmilla forward to close the remaining distance between them.

Carmilla’s mouth presses against hers, lips moving softly to start with before getting steadily hotter. Laura had almost forgotten how good a kisser Carmilla is, and a whimper escapes her mouth embarrassingly quickly. Carmilla’s arms wrap around Laura’s waist and pull her closer, and Laura tangles her hands into Carmilla’s hair as she melts further into her and she parts her lips to let Carmilla deepen the kiss. Carmilla’s tongue slides across her bottom lip before licking into her mouth, and idly, Laura wonders why the hell she tried to stay so moral the past few months when  _this_  is what she was missing out on. Carmilla’s hands travel down to grope greedily at Laura’s ass and pull their hips together, and logic is a distant, distant, far-off thought. So far away in might as well be in the Southern Hemisphere. Maybe even the moon. Perhaps another galaxy.

“So is this a yes?” Carmilla asks — slightly breathlessly, Laura notes smugly — when they break the kiss for air.

“You know that we wouldn’t be able to tell anyone, right?” Laura says, still slightly hesitant despite having just made out with her student for a good ten minutes. “At least not until after winter break. So no walking around campus holding hands, or attaching love letters written on post-its to your papers, or standing outside my apartment and serenading me with love songs.”

“I’ll try to contain myself.”

Laura sees all the  _final warning_  and  _point of no return_  and  _you can't come back from this_  signs, and ignores every single one of them.

“Then it’s a yes,” Laura replies and wipes the smile off Carmilla’s face by kissing her again.

This may or may not (more likely the former) be an insane, crazy, extremely bad idea. Possibly even the worst one she’s ever had. But then again, no dead relatives have materialised behind Carmilla to tut disapprovingly at Laura about what an idiot she’s being for even remotely considering the thought of dating her student, and no prison-jumpsuit-clad Lauras from the future have apparated into the middle of the classroom telling her she’s about to make a colossal mistake, so it can’t be  _that_  terrible of an idea. Maybe.

She stops thinking when Carmilla breaks the kiss again, this time in favour of dragging her mouth along Laura’s jaw.

“Honestly I’m kind of impressed,” Carmilla remarks in between kisses. “We didn’t think you’d last this long.”

Hold on a second,  _we_?

Laura pulls back to stare at Carmilla in confusion until it clicks. “Elsie?” Carmilla’s smile widens. “You were trying to make me jealous.”

“I'm pretty sure it worked.”

“Shut up,” Laura grumbles. “Have the two of you been plotting my downfall the entire time?"

"Mm pretty much yeah. She caught me eyefucking you one day and took it upon herself to play Cupid."

"Remind me to give her an A+ on the next paper,” Laura says, pulling Carmilla back in for another kiss and muffling her dry comment of  _that’s professional_.

Carmilla nips at her bottom lip and sucks on her tongue, shuffling them both around until Laura is trapped between the side of the desk and Carmilla’s body, and the image of Carmilla stripping her naked, lifting her onto the table and then dropping to her knees pops into Laura’s brain. As if she can read her mind, Carmilla breaks the kiss to whisper in Laura’s ear, "Do you know how often I've imagined fucking you on your desk?"

"Probably around the same number of times I've imagined fucking you on it." Laura fully blames Carmilla's hands on her ass for letting that comment slip out.

"Ah so you have thought about me?" Carmilla asks with a wicked smirk, leaning in to brush their lips together. “I knew it.”

"Shut up." If Laura had known Carmilla would be this annoyingly smug she would've put up a better fight. Maybe.

“You know I’d be more than happy to make that fantasy a reality,” Carmilla murmurs against Laura’s mouth, before capturing her lips in another heated kiss that makes everything go a little fuzzy.

The world crashes back into focus a few minutes later when Laura feels Carmilla’s hands tugging at her belt buckle, and with a disappointed groan she pulls back from the kiss and takes hold of Carmilla’s wrists to pull her hands away.

Carmilla pouts at her in an unspoken question, and Laura wonders which circle of Hell she’s going to end up in for thinking her student —  _student!_  — looks remarkably cute when she’s denied the chance to fuck her TA (again) in their classroom.

“What?” Carmilla asks, leaning back in to press a line of kisses down Laura’s throat that eat away at her self-control alarming quickly. “You don’t want to?”

“No, of course I want to, it’s just uh... Not here.” She pauses, trying to remember what Danny’s plans are tonight. A date night with Kirsch, she’s ninety-nine per cent certain. “My apartment will be empty until ten.”

“Hm,” Carmilla says, tracing her tongue over Laura’s racing pulse point. “My roommate said she’d be out until eleven. And my apartment is closer.”

Well. That settles that then.

/

The second Laura steps foot over the threshold of Carmilla’s apartment she finds herself being shoved against the door, before Carmilla catches her mouth in another kiss that Laura feels throughout her entire body. She lets Carmilla grope at her chest for a little bit before pushing her back so she can send a cursory glance around the room.

Carmilla’s apartment is nice. The front door leads straight into the living room-slash-kitchen, and Laura immediately zeroes in on the comfy looking dark blue sofa that she’s relatively certain is about to be thoroughly defiled by her and Carmilla. Unless Carmilla chooses to just fuck her right against the door. Both options are preferable.

“Nice place,” Laura comments, looking at a framed photo on the mantelpiece next to her of Carmilla and a vaguely familiar blonde girl — Laura eventually places her as the Karlie Kloss’ doppelganger from Kirsch’s party — both wearing sombreros and both clearly under the heavy, heavy influence of a lot of alcohol.

“Thanks,” Carmilla replies, before pouncing on Laura.

Her back connects with the wall a second time, and she groans at the feeling when Carmilla presses her body flush against Laura’s.

“You’re wearing too much,” Carmilla mumbles. “Come on, start getting naked. I’ve been daydreaming about tearing these clothes off you since I walked into class this afternoon.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

"Speaking of your current attire, I’m not sure why you act like you were completely innocent in all of this," Carmilla says, arching an eyebrow so high Laura's surprised it doesn't shoot straight off her head. Carmilla takes ahold of the tie, running her fingers up the material until they're grasping the knot and using it to pull Laura close enough to brush her mouth over Laura’s. "You've never worn a tie before today, and I'm supposed to believe this is just one big coincidence after I mentioned them yesterday? Does this even belong to you?"

"No," Laura admits, mostly because words more than one syllable long are proving difficult to remember when Carmilla is slowly untying the tie knot.

Carmilla slides the tie out of Laura’s shirt collar, lets it fall to the floor with a quiet thump, and the sound is like some kind of catalyst for them to start tugging each others clothes off while kissing and pawing at each newly exposed patch of skin frantically.

Laura takes hold of the bottom of Carmilla’s jumper — she actually owns clothes that don’t display sixty per cent skin, who knew? — and pulls it up over her head, and Carmilla trails kisses down Laura’s throat while she shoves the suspenders off Laura's shoulders and then starts popping open the buttons on Laura’s shirt. The button and zipper on Laura’s jeans get undone before Laura’s shirt has even hit the floor, and Laura tries not to groan when Carmilla sinks to her knees to peel the pants down her legs, peppering kisses across Laura’s thighs as she goes.

Carmilla stands up and quickly strips off her own jeans before wrapping her arms around Laura’s waist and walking them backwards to the sofa, breaking the kiss momentarily to sit down, leaving Laura to scramble on top of her. Laura settles in Carmilla’s lap, a knee either side of her, and leans in for another kiss. She tugs on Carmilla’s bottom lip, another surge of heat flooding through her body at the whimpered noise Carmilla makes, coaxing her mouth open so she can brush their tongues together. She shudders and arches forward when Carmilla scrapes her nails lightly up her back towards her bra clasp.

Carmilla rids Laura of her bra and — after some awkward shuffling — her underwear, and immediately ducks her head to start planting hot wet kisses across Laura’s clavicle and down to her chest. Laura moans and digs her fingers in tighter to where she’s clinging onto the back of the sofa when Carmilla’s tongue slides against one of her nipples, before her mouth envelops it and sucks softly. She reaches up with one hand to cup the other breast, pinching and rolling the nipple between her fingers until Laura starts rocking her hips down against Carmilla’s lap in an attempt to get any kind of friction.

“Carmilla,” Laura whines, tugging at Carmilla’s hair until she lifts her head away from Laura’s chest so she can kiss her. “Come on. What are you waiting for, a formal invitation?”

They've waited three months for this, Carmilla can take go slowly and drag it out another time.

“Someone’s impatient,” Carmilla chuckles when Laura grabs at her hand and tugs it between her legs. Thankfully, she appears to get the message, sliding her fingers through the dripping wetness between Laura’s thighs and tilting her head up to latch her mouth onto Laura’s throat. Carmilla sucks hard at Laura’s racing pulse point, circling her fingertips against Laura’s clit a few times before sliding two fingers inside her. Laura gasps out a strangled  _oh God_ , letting go of the sofa in favour of tangling her hands in Carmilla’s hair, arching her back and rocking her hips down to meet Carmilla’s fingers.

Carmilla immediately finds a steady rhythm of pushing in and pulling out while she grinds her palm against Laura’s clit, her mouth kissing and nipping and sucking all across Laura’s throat and chest while her other hand roams all over Laura’s body, squeezing her ass, rolling her nipples between her fingers, splaying her palm out on the small of her back to encourage the movement of Laura’s hips.

Laura feels like she’s on fire with all the lust coursing through her bloodstream, and the heat coiling in her lower stomach is building and building with each perfectly angled thrust of Carmilla’s fingers, and Jesus  _Christ_ , the way Carmilla curls her fingers should be illegal.

Carmilla returns to kissing at Laura’s throat, murmuring filthy comments about how long she’s wanted to have Laura like this that Laura only just catches over the sound of her own ragged gasping, while she manoeuvres her hand to circle her thumb against Laura’s clit. It earns her another desperate moan of  _Carmilla fuck oh God fuck_ , and the twin sensations of Carmilla’s fingers curling inside her and Carmilla’s thumb rubbing at her clit are enough to send Laura tumbling over the edge with an unrestrained moan.

Carmilla gently brings her down with slow movements of her fingers and soft kisses to her neck and jaw, until Laura’s head clears enough so she can focus on Carmilla. When she blinks blearily down at Carmilla, she’s grinning up at her with another feral smirk, the one that makes Laura wonder if she’s actually part animal. She tries to think of some witty remark or smooth comment to make, but all she can think about is taking Carmilla apart like Carmilla just did to her, so she leans in to wipe that smug smile off of Carmilla’s face.

She kisses Carmilla until her legs feel steady enough for her to climb off Carmilla’s lap, push her down to lay on her back and settle herself between Carmilla’s thighs. Laura rids Carmilla of her bra and kisses her way down to her chest, closing her mouth over Carmilla’s nipples and sucking gently, flicking her tongue over them, tugging on them with her teeth until Carmilla’s arching up towards her.

Once she’s showered enough attention on both breasts and Carmilla is squirming and whimpering underneath her, Laura’s way too eager to sink her fingers inside Carmilla to bother waiting until she’s taken Carmilla’s underwear off, so she just drags a hand down Carmilla’s stomach and slides it under the fabric to meet the wet heat between her thighs.

Carmilla throws her head back against the sofa and groans loudly when Laura pushes inside her, and Laura’s head spins with how wet and warm Carmilla is around her. She pumps and twists and angles her fingers to pull more filthy moans from Carmilla, grinding her palm against Carmilla’s clit all the while, and it isn’t long before Carmilla’s shaking and convulsing under her, moaning Laura’s name raggedly as she comes.

Laura licks her fingers clean, patiently waiting until Carmilla looks like she can breathe again before descending on her in another kiss. And honestly, Laura wants to punch herself for delaying  _this_  for so long.

“So,” Carmilla says after a few minutes of exchanging lazy kisses. “We still have plenty of time before my roommate gets back. How do you want to spend that time?”

Laura has a few ideas.

/

Several rounds of truly life-affirming sex later, they move to Carmilla’s bed, via the front door to pick up their clothes, and have one last round, before Laura’s too exhausted to do anything other than nap. She’s dozing off with her head on Carmilla’s chest, Carmilla’s hands stroking up and down her back slowly lulling her to sleep, when the front door of the apartment bangs open, and someone comes in whistling loudly to themself.

“Hey Carm, you home?” A female voice echoes through the apartment, and Laura snaps her head up to stare at Carmilla in wide-eyed horror. “So I need some advice from the master on how to get rid of a stage-five clinger, because this girl just does not seem to grasp the concept of casual sex.” The voice gets louder as the owner makes her way towards Carmilla’s room, and Laura only just manages to yank the blanket up to cover herself and Carmilla before the door flies open and the blonde girl from the sombrero photograph comes storming in.

“Wake up bitch we need— oh my God,” she yelps when she realises Carmilla has company, and spins round while dramatically placing her hand over her eyes. “Um wow, okay. Care to introduce me to your friend, Carmilla?” The roommate then asks before Carmilla or Laura can snap at her to get out. Which,  _now_?  _Really_?

Laura’s about eighty per cent certain that the only thing stopping Carmilla from leaping across the room to throttle the roommate is the fact she’s still completely naked underneath the blanket.

“This is Laura, my uh— a friend. Laura, this is Ell. My annoying roommate who I  _thought_  was out on a date,” Carmilla grits out from between clenched teeth.

“I was,” Ell says. “But at one point she she asked if I wanted to go on a real date that didn’t just end up with us having sex, so I put my clothes back on and left. Had I known you would be  _busy_ , I would’ve stayed out longer.”

Clearly Ell and Carmilla are a match made in roommate heaven.

“Hold on, did you just say Laura? Laura as in that TA you’ve been mooning over for months? Carmilla!” Ell whirls round to glare at the pair of them. Laura pulls the blanket further up to cover her chin since it suddenly feels worryingly see-through under Ell’s scrutinising gaze, and she's mildly concerned Ell is going to leap onto the bed to start lecturing Carmilla.

Carmilla rolls her eyes at Ell’s disapproving tutting. “Ell, could we maybe have this conversation at a less naked time?”

Ell throws her hands up in defeat and flounces out of the room, allowing Laura to peek out from behind her blanket shield. Carmilla runs a hand through her hair in aggravation and flops down onto her front next to Laura.

“Um, sorry about her,” Carmilla says with a wry smile. “She has boundary issues.”

“So I can see.”

“Hey, don’t worry about her okay?” Carmilla says softly, reaching out to cup Laura’s face which thankfully assuages some of the panic. “She’s an annoying asshole, but she’ll keep her mouth shut, and won’t go ratting us out to anyone.”

The certainty of Carmilla’s tone manages to settle some more of the churning terror in Laura’s stomach at being caught, so Laura moves onto teasing Carmilla about a little fact Ell had let slip.

“So you’ve been ‘mooning after me for months’ have you?” Laura asks with a smile, laughing when Carmilla groans  _oh don’t start_  and buries her face in the pillow. “Is that why you called me your  _friend_?”

“Well, yeah?” Carmilla replies, lifting her head from the pillow to raise an eyebrow at Laura. “I would’ve called you my girlfriend but I didn’t want to assume, and also I want to take you on a date first.”

“A date?”

“Yes, a date. People generally go on them as a precursor to a relationship,” Carmilla deadpans.

Laura rolls her eyes. “Not to rain on your romantic parade, but I don’t know if we can really go _out_ on a date while you’re still my student."

“Well are you free tomorrow night? You can come over, I’ll cook you dinner, and then we can cuddle up and watch a film or something,” Carmilla says with a lecherous smirk, and Laura gets the feeling ‘watch a film’ might be a euphemism for something that involves less clothing. “So unless The Dean decides to come barging into my apartment halfway through, no one will ever know.”

Laura can’t help but smile at the hopeful look on Carmilla’s face. “Okay. Tomorrow.”

/

Laura’s busy scrawling a big red A onto Elsie’s latest paper when Danny gets home later.

“Hey,” she greets with a smile. “Kirsch had to cancel so I bought Chinese. I texted to see if you were gonna be in tonight and you didn’t reply, but I got you some egg rolls.”  _Yeah sorry I was too busy fucking my student into oblivion to reply to dinner-related texts._  “And I was on my way home when— what?”

Laura looks up, and Danny’s watching her with furrowed eyebrows. “What?”

“You have that look on your face. That really guilty one that usually means you’ve done something stupid and you’re not sure if I’m going to yell at you or find it funny.”

Is she really that easy to read? Goddammit.

“Um. Okay so,” Laura starts, shifting over so Danny can sit down next to her on the sofa. “Uh, funny story."  _It really isn't all that funny, why did you say that you idiot_? "You remember when you asked if I wanted to fuck Carmilla again, and I said that I didn’t?”

“Okay now that I know what she looks like, I completely understand if you want to sleep with her again. You know, just so long as you don’t actually…” Danny trails off, and Laura watches in equal parts panic and amusement as the light bulb goes off above her head. “Oh God. You slept with her again, didn’t you?”

Laura just nods, a guilty-as-charged smile on her face.

“Oh my God,” Danny huffs, abandoning opening one of the takeout boxes and fixing Laura with an incredulous look. “Laura I know she’s hot, and I’m sure she was amazing in bed, but is sleeping with your student really worth the risk?”

“Just sleeping with her isn’t, no.” Laura avoids looking at Danny while she opens the box of egg rolls. “Which is why I have a date with her tomorrow night.”

“Oh my God,” Danny huffs again. “Oh, so you’re  _dating_  your student, that's so much better than just sleeping with her.”

“She won’t be my student next semester alright? I can put up with having to sneak around like two teenagers for a month or two,” Laura says, snatching up an egg roll from the open box.

“Yeah, you just have to, you know, not get caught.”

“Look, trust me Danny, I tried to stay away from her, tried to ignore the fact I have a gigantic, butterfly-inducing, zone-out-in-class-cause-I’m-too-busy-daydreaming, enormous crush on her, and it didn’t work. And do you really think I’d be taking this risk if I didn’t think she was worth it?”

“Ugh, no, you’re not supposed to say shit like that,” Danny groans, and Laura looks at her in question. “I’m your best friend, I’m supposed to be the voice of reason for when you’re flinging yourself headfirst into a bad decision, but then you say stuff like that and I think  _aw how cute, maybe you dating a student isn’t such a bad idea_.”

“She’s the best bad idea I’ve ever had?” Laura tries.

Danny shakes her head. “No, that one didn’t have as much impact.”

Laura preoccupies herself by stuffing an egg roll into her mouth while Danny digests all this new information.

“Well,” Danny eventually sighs out, sounding like she has the weight of all of Laura’s dumb ideas on her shoulders. “Even if I don’t really condone it, I suppose if you’re happy then I’m happy.”

“Glad we have your blessing,” Laura says, reaching for the television remote.

“I promise to visit you in prison if you get caught,” Danny adds on, and Laura groans.

/

When Laura turns up to Carmilla’s apartment the next day, Ell answers the door with a cheerful smile, and a greeting of, “Hey. You look different with clothes on.”

There’s a loud thump from inside the apartment, followed by the sounds of Carmilla swearing and huffing. “Ell, get away from her,” Carmilla grumbles as she stomps into view. “Go away. Shoo.”

“I’m just making polite conversation Carmilla,” Ell says, looking mock offended.

“Ell?” Carmilla says sweetly. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Maybe I think you need a chaperone for your date.”

“Ell,” Carmilla huffs. “Fuck off.”

 _Charming_ , Laura thinks.

“Charming,” Ell says, but dutifully walks past Laura and out of the apartment. “Have fun,” she adds on, waving at Laura and blowing a kiss to Carmilla, who promptly flips her off in reply.

This is the weirdest friendship Laura has ever witnessed.

“Again, I apologise for her,” Carmilla grumbles after shutting the door. Her unimpressed look morphs into a happy smile quickly and she leans in to press a kiss to Laura’s cheek. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Laura replies, wrapping her arms around Carmilla’s neck and pulling her into a proper kiss. None of this polite peck-on-the-cheek nonsense.

She’s more than content to just make out with Carmilla while whatever’s cooking on the oven slowly starts to burn, but her stomach has other plans, rumbling loudly and effectively ending the kiss when Carmilla smiles too much for Laura to really kiss her.

“Dinner now, kissing later?” Carmilla asks, and steers Laura towards the dining table.

Carmilla makes pasta that smells and tastes like tomato and cheese heaven, which Laura promptly wolfs down her body weight in, and then produces a bottle of fancy champagne from the refrigerator that looks like it costs about the same as a SoHo loft while she ushers Laura over to the sofa so they can curl up together and watch a movie.

(Carmilla holds up two DVDs, The Age of Innocence and The Crucible, and asks which one Laura prefers. Laura’s not entirely sure she should find it as cute as she does, considering Carmilla’s little spiel about her essay topic the previous day very nearly gave her a damn heart attack.)

It’s possibly the most perfect first date Laura’s ever had, so when the movie finishes and Carmilla asks  _so am I allowed to call you my girlfriend after one date_ , Laura answers her with a very affirmative kiss.

“So, would you like to stay over?” Carmilla asks all faux-innocently, while she carries the dirty dishes over to the kitchen and dumps them in the sink to clean later.

"I'll have you know that I don't have sex on the first date," Laura replies, examining some more framed photos of Ell and Carmilla dotted around the room. "I'm not that kind of girl. I have morals."

"Yes, I can tell. Dating a student certainly gives it away. Besides—" Carmilla's voice suddenly seems a lot closer than before, and a second later Laura feels arms winding around her stomach and a warm body pressing against her back. Carmilla's mouth brushes against her ear when she continues, "Does no sex on the first date really still count if we've already had sex twice?"

Laura wants to say yes it still counts, but Carmilla's fingers hooking into her belt loops and gently tugging her in the direction of the bedroom change her mind pretty quickly.

/

This time when Laura wakes up post-fucking-Carmilla-all-night, Carmilla is still there, propped up on her elbow while she watches Laura, looking every inch like a very smug cat that got the cream.

“You watch people while they sleep?” Laura says in lieu of a good morning, stretching out under the blanket. “I feel like I should’ve been informed of your creepy tendencies before I agreed to be your girlfriend.”

“Only my devastatingly attractive TAs,” Carmilla replies, and Laura wonders if she should be concerned that she finds the sentiment charming. “So how do you feel about breakfast?”

Breakfast is pretty much the last thing on Laura’s mind when a) Carmilla is still gloriously naked right next to her, and b) she has nowhere urgent to be on a Saturday morning, so instead of answering, she just rolls Carmilla onto her back, straddles her and leans down to kiss her.

"You sure you aren't hungry?” Carmilla asks when Laura pulls back to start trailing her lips along Carmilla’s jaw, apparently still set on this breakfast thing. ”Ell bought ten packets of pancake mix the other day cause they were on sale, so we can make them."

Laura's slightly offended that Carmilla's voice is still so steady when Laura's pressing kisses down her neck, so when Carmilla tries to ask if she’s more of a waffle person, Laura wedges a thigh between her legs and presses hard. It shuts Carmilla up pretty quickly.

"Breakfast sounds good," Laura murmurs, tugging on Carmilla's earlobe with her teeth. "But I'd rather just go down on you for another hour."

Carmilla lets out a sort of half-squeak, half-whimper noise, before apparently coming round to Laura’s way of thinking and wrapping her arms around Laura to pull their bodies flush together. Not for the first time, and probably not for the last time, Laura wonders what the hell took her so long to just give in to this.

 _This_  being the slightly rumpled white sheets, the early morning sunlight filtering in from the curtains, the happiness blooming within her chest and Carmilla looking up at her with a smile that could only be described as hopelessly smitten.

Laura’s one hundred per cent certain she looks the exact same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed. I'd like to give a special thanks to Elise saying 'school me' in that one video, which spurned this 21k word fic, and [you can find me on tumblr here](http://baumanelises.tumblr.com)


End file.
